Quote:
Originally Posted by FurnaceFace
Anecdotal, but my wife’s friend flew from Europe to Pearson a couple days ago. She said to her Pearson seemed like a regular busy day. She didn’t notice any extreme long lines. She did have to recheck bags and go through security again like a regular.
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The third thing I've learned to be true...
3. Looking at Mainstream Media / YouTube / TikTok / Facebook / Twitter headlines can make a person think they are 100% guaranteed to be involved in airport 'chaos' or 'crisis' (their 2 favorite descriptors).
The headlines about Toronto Pearson can make Canadians think *every* Canadian airport will be a similar nightmare which is certainly not the case.
Even at Toronto Pearson, which seemingly has an 80-85% market share of Canada's airport issues, it's pretty random and to a degree, luck of the draw.
Here's the most recent comments from travellers passing through or departing YYZ this week...
"Flight attendant here.. T3 is a gong show most of the time specially on arrival, worse than T1"
"I flew out last week Tuesday morning 10am flight with Westjet. Got to the airport at 7:30am. Got through customs within minutes. Came back a week later and same smooth process."
"Since Wednesday, some of the T3 flights are now departing and arriving from the infield terminal, I order to help managing the overcrowding."
"I flew to the UK with west jet T3 it was brutal."
"I just got back on Thursday. Literally 30 seconds for customs and in an uber 20 minutes later."
"Never show up 3 or 4 hours early. There will be enough people who do that and then there's a log jam. I've shown up 2 or less every time (travelled 6 times so far this year) and never had an issue. Choose odd days to fly out instead of Monday mornings or Friday evenings."
"We flew out this morning also for Montego Bay! We got to the airport at 3:15 and breezed through everything……"
"it’s actually not departing that's the issue, but arriving is a continuing problem for some. My daughter however arrived a week ago today (Saturday) at 6:30 am and she was through so fast that she had to wait for me to pick her up!"
"And my mom arrived Thursday night of this week, and no problems, so perhaps things are slowly improving."
"On Thursday…. it took my colleague 12 hours to travel from Montreal to Toronto - it was insane. Super long security lines, bag check chaos, delays to weather, lack of flight crews, lack of gate crews, and no baggage service… bring patience - this was domestic. "
"I had no issues at T1 or T3, departure and arrival."
"It's getting better , Flew to LAX for a 10:30 am flight - got there at 7:30 - whole process only an hour - came home yesterday 2 hr flight delay in LA - into Pearson T3 at 8:15 am zipped through customs and had to wait maybe 20 mins for bags to be unloaded. "
The only consistent patterns I've seen are...
- Terminal 3 has been worse than Terminal 1
- Arrivals are worse than departures. Flights that arrive later on on the evening have less complaints.
Anecdotally, the number of people complaining about YYZ has dropped considerably in the last week or two. But it's possible people just gave up complaining (The first half of May felt like the peak for complaints). And it feels like there are more people posting that they were surprised they didn't go through anything too hellish.