Toronto Pearson Airport

❎ Not Verified | Every time, literally every time using anything at Toronto Airport causes stress. We try so hard to use other airports such as London, Hamilton and Kitchener and from now on we vow to use Detroit and Buffalo as we have in the past rather than Toronto. With all the flying we do you would think law of averages would help to the airports advantage but they seem to excel in failure. Upon arrival almost no entry machines at parking garages/lots are working at 6am. Just an invalid message on screen, when pressing for a ticket. Finally found one that worked. This time around once again last Saturday on a sunny but very cold morning we sat on tarmac 90 minutes awaiting de-icing and departure at 9am. Not a busy time for YYZ compared to M-F at 9am and there were only 4 aircraft's waiting. This airport moves at a snails pace. Upon arrival last night we once again sat on tarmac because a gate was not ready. This happens so often when we arrive at this airport. Sure looks like plenty of open gates for aircraft as we sit there just waiting. 30 minutes! Then we get to a gate and wait another 10 minutes to actually attach to jetway. Lame again. Now we have to go thru the chaos of Customs which I do not mind because it kills time waiting for bags anyway. The lines and lack of organization are terrible. I truly feel for those with connecting flights that misses all of theirs, of which there are always many. No workers care here they just keep re-arranging the line ropes. I have seen teenage ushers at cinemas do a better job at handling lines. That said we were through in an hour (too long yes but like I said we have to wait for bags anyway). Guess what, we now wait another 90 minutes for our bags. There are 10 or so large baggage carousels in Terminal 1. Seems like 4 flights we coming out on #5 while most others sat idle. 90 minutes for bags after already being in Catsa lines for 1 hour. Not acceptable. Now we finally get to parking garage and as we already know the frustration with Pay Machines, they have 2! Two! So we decide to just pay at exit with a credit card which is fine as well. Guess what, out of 5 exit machines with cars lining up, 1 is working. Everyone is so frustrated. So after landing at 9.30pm we finally get to leave the airport at 12.30am. My flight was 5 hours! The sad part is that the airlines bear the brunt of complaints when this is the airport that is running, or lack thereof, that is causing the issues. YYZ, you are no longer part of my travel plans.

✅ Trip Verified | I've been through Pearson airport many times over the years. I still can't come to terms with how difficult it seems to be to get anywhere. From security to your gate usually includes stairs or escalators up and then stairs or escalators down. It's so convoluted and if you are rushing for a connecting flight? Forget it. The areas past security at my last gate concentrated way too much on shops and not enough on food choices. People already have way too much carry on. I get a few stores, and magazines, travel essentials but it was excessive. The seats at the gate were old and no plug in options. I feel like the airport layout for passenger movement is awful.

❎ Not Verified | Smoking not allowed, USD not accepted, credit cards not accepted, Euros not accepted. Transiting via Canada never again. I was traveling with my family and this was an extremely unpleasant experience for us all.

✅ Trip Verified | Our flight was delayed by only about half an hour because only one runway was available. When we arrived, we had to walk to the immigration department. The airline informed us we couldn't fill out our customs forms as before. So, we expected to have to fill them out at the immigration hall. To our surprise, the hall was packed with hundreds of other travelers, who were herded into lineups like cattle. So we joined the line and eventually came to a section of machines where we had to fill all the usual stuff into a computer and had a picture taken by the machine. There was no previous information about what is coming and there were only a couple of attendants available for the dozens of machines crowded with travelers. We travel quite frequently and in spite of our original shock, we were through quite quickly. When we checked what carousel our luggage was going to be on, we thought that once we walk across the huge hall, we will be all set to pick our bags and go home after the ten hours of travel. Bags from our flight were already showing on the belt, but only one every few seconds. They were four flights listed on the carousel so we figured, it will be a long wait. We didn't expect to be 2 and half hours! There was no information, no explanation and no hope for the hundreds of tired travelers. The belt stopped running after about half an hour. There were no seats for the elderly travelers or places where you could put down a sleeping child. The vending machine broken, information booths without information and no communication from anybody. Just changes on the display board above carousel, where your flight would appear at one time and disappear at another time. After about two hours, people started complaining, asking questions and getting truly upset. Within another 15 minutes the belt started running and people started checking what flights the bags are from. Suddenly, somebody discovered their bags on another carousel and joyfully announced to rest of us that the bags are coming. No official informed us about the change and nobody bothered to explain the situation, least of all apologize for the inconvenience and total luck of organization. One attendant actually uttered to another traveler "that's what you get flying a cheap airline"! I realize, that weather could play some havoc in the luggage delivery, but there was no effort on the employees part to make our life easier, even if it has been just by communicating and apologizing. The hall was projecting itself as a death trap in case of a fire, potential health issues of tired travelers, or other disasters. No visible signs for emergency exits for shorter people, or even a way to escape with thousands of people in this huge hall. I fly many times a year and this was the far the worst I experienced. Complete luck of interest by the airport employees for the well being of travelers!

❎ Not Verified | Delays due to baggage when we landed, most international airports will have your baggage to you in 30 minutes or less, over 45 minutes at Pearson. Delays due to new technology for customs but very minimal staff to assist people. More delays on departure due to gate switches, more delays because after loading the aircraft we still do not have fuel (waiting on refilling according to pilot) minimal security personal working very long wait lines. The washrooms and overall cleanliness of the place was poor. Airport is not easy to manoeuvre and has been perpetually "under construction" for years. Don't fly into Toronto if you can afford it. Also prices for food and bev are over inflated even for an airport.

❎ Not Verified | Our flight departed nearly 60 minutes late because the baggage handlers took so long to load baggage. This may have been due to moving baggage from connecting flights. However, I had to move through border security, then travel 15 minutes (walking) across the airport, and I could have moved my baggage quicker. Secondly: the communication regarding where passengers should go when going to a connecting flight is lacking. We found ourselves searching for signs that might give us a clue about where to go. Thirdly: We had to go through a security check point to board the second leg of our trip and the line was easily transgressed by anyone not wanting to wait in line. If you can help it, route your trip through any other airport!

✅ Trip Verified | We landed from Gatwick at just after 3pm. Baggage did not come though to Baggage Claim until after 6.15. I missed a connecting flight. Then had to pay full ticket on a later flight to Saskatoon. We all got on the flight to Saskatoon on time and we have not been waiting almost and hour and twenty minutes for a ground crew to push off and get us going. Complete incompetence at this airport. Understaffed lack of communications and I would recommend availing this airport at all costs.

✅ Trip Verified | Shame on me for going through Lester B Pearson again, only airport where I waste as much time in CATSA queues than I do in my inbound flight. I just went through the Lester B Pearson CATSA nightmare on Dec 31 at 8pm, 2017 and this was anything but a breeze! More like traffic jam on a highway with all but one lane blocked by CATSA as CATSA carefully slows everything down to a trickle so that a queue of 100+ people backs up and wait for 1 CATSA crew and 1 machine to do their understaffed work functions. No one cares that people’s connecting flights are at risk – no one – and where are your floor managers – nowhere to be found? This has been going on for years! Shame on you CATSA and your understaffed and bossy organization. This is truly not fair to people who pay a lot of money on air tickets and have children or other obligations to attend to. My main issues are: 1) Not a peep of a manager available to talk with or voice a complaint. 2) Four scanning machines fully functional and all but one closed down because CATSA does not staff adequately to accommodate the travelers who paid dearly for their flights and end up missing them. 3) Passport and green card scanners didn’t work 4 times on my wife’s green card and not a peep from anyone to help us! 4) The joy of a second security queue despite having already gone through security at departing point. Lester B Pearson and CATSA have never addressed this for over 3 years now - ridiculous! That is one hour times two just on security queues in this CATSA created security queues mayhem. 5) Also over 3 queues to navigate: Security a second time (over 1 hour for reason mentioned above), Passport and scanner queue where the scanners did not work correctly 3x on my wife’s gc, and then the joy of another 45 minute immigration queue plus and infernal maze of doors at the start of this all, that one must navigate to go from your arrival plane to USA connections – only at Lester B Pearson, and still going on after 3 years now. I spent a total of 3 hours in CATSA queues in one day yesterday and 6 hours flying (that’s 33% of my time in your stupid queues). Your incompetence and poor management after 3 years at Lester B Pearson, are costing people significant loss of time as you seem to put understaffed queues everywhere and you don’t care that it ends up costing people hours and many times missed flights. If CATSA can’t do their work properly then I feel that the Canadian govt should replace them with an organization that will. Passengers deserve better than this waste of time and being barked at in queues, because the lines are too long due to the fact that CATSA seems to understaff and be inefficient everywhere. I will no longer fly Lester B Pearson and would encourage other fliers to Ottawa to avoid the Lester B Pearson nightmare as well.

✅ Trip Verified | I thought my 3 hr 50 mins transit time was too long, it turned out it was barely enough. Took more than 2.5 hrs to go through US customs (travel from Tokyo to DC via Toronto) went through different lines, for re-security, for your checked bags to be inspected, for immigration and customs. I don’t have any irregularities going through these, but it took me almost 3 hrs. There were lots of people waiting, but not like tons of people filling the room full. 5 immigration officers working at the time. Caught my flight on time, but waited for 10 minutes for some passengers who were delayed transiting, then for bags. It seems it’s common for delayed transit. Finally departed after 1 hr delay. Only found out my 2 luggages were missing after arriving IAD. I would suggest avoid Air Canada and transit in Toronto.

❎ Not Verified | This airport is one of the worst run airports ever. While checking in we were in a line up for 2 hours. There are never enough staff on and staff that are there are inefficient and rude. On returning back to Pearson they had a new system with one person trying to guide 2000 people with line ups almost all way back to our flight. We went down stairs to go through immigration with a further delay 40 mins. Further to this our bags didn't appear for over 2 and half hours.