Toronto Pearson Airport

Not Verified | This airport has the worst baggage delivery system in the country. Landed and 1/2 hr to 45 mins after, still no bag. It is honestly brutal. Pearson, wake up, please fix.

Not Verified | I travel to this airport quite frequently as I live in Toronto and I like it. Easy to find gates, and the signage is pretty good as well. At most gates there are iPads where you can order food play games, or browse the internet. The airport staff are very nice and respectful. T1 is a lot more modern and nice, there are more things to do and is the bigger terminal, although T3 is decent too. Theres a decent number of stores and places to eat. I’ve never done a flight connection here though but in most cases you have to pick up your bags. I’ve seen the bathrooms flooded before, and another complaint is the automatic flush. Both terminals have the same layout with the 2 piers. There is a decent number of seats as well. The wifi is decent, what you would expect at an airport. There is a ton of elevators and the ones in T1 are huge and can fit a lot of people. It is pretty easy to navigate as well. Transport to downtown Toronto or around the gta is very easy, as there are 2 TTC routes to Lawrence and Kipling stn. GO bus, Brampton Transit, and MiWay. Theres also the UP express to downtown in 25 minutes with 2 stops at dundas west stn and weston rd. Theres a ton of taxis. Overall I like this airport and I definitely recommend it.

✅ Trip Verified | Toronto is a world-class city but my feelings for the city's main airport is that it is not world-class even though it could be. I don't find staff very nice or helpful in general, and having been at this airport countless times I could confirm that in the check-in area. But the worst part of the airport for me is the security screening area, it seems understaffed and there's not a separate area for families travelling with small children. I could see this time there was a dedicated security screening area for the E gates at Terminal 1 which seemed new to me and made me wonder whether they now have a separate security screening area for the different concourses rather than a single one (well, except for the US). We breezed through in less than 5 minutes which was quite a difference from previous experiences taking 30 minutes or more. The wifi never seems to work. The airside area is nice and has a good selection of restaurants.

Not Verified | The check in counter staff who were working on January 19 at a Air Transat desk for the Gatwick flight departing at 9 pm were extremely miserable, unfriendly and unsympathetic with zero people skills. They should not be working in an industry where they meet and welcome guests.

✅ Trip Verified | Can’t believe how rude people here are! I have always heard Canadians are very friendly, not true at this airport. Just one example: it’s 1/19/19 and about 4:30am. I hope someone reading knows who this guy is. I am a premium class flyer and also have American Express platinum card. I got in the priority TSA lane. A man came and got me out of a long line saying they didn’t ‘check’ me and that I can’t be in that line. What? I had to go all the way back to the beginning to show someone my credit card. The man sat there smiling and mocking while the woman looked at my boarding pass and credit card and when she was finished he said ‘woohoo! Now you have it right.’ If he wanted to see that I could be in the priority lane, why not check my card in the line? I was in the right place.

What an embarrassment for a major city like Toronto. Horribly long wait times, specially for people who are handicapped, and very unorganized. The bathrooms are unkempt and dirty. It was much quicker at LAX, which was during the government shutdown.

Not Verified | Awful service and airport design. They should demolish the entire structure and rebuild it. Moreover, the entire staff need to be trained on executing better customer service skills.

Not Verified | Gate is never ready regardless of arrival time and you need to wait for another 5-10 min on the plane after a 14 hours flight for ground staff to slowly perform their preparations. Immigration was surprisingly ok this time. Now you need to wait 30 min for your luggages. They do not follow rules and priority luggages could come last. Now the fun part starts. Two staff checking declaration cards of over 1000 passengers in a real chaos. Not sure what the genius behind this capacity planning was thinking. The queue was so long on December 22nd evening that took another 40 min of our time to get out of the airport after we waited long for our luggages. Welcome to the most mismanaged airport of all developed countries.

Not Verified | Toronto Pearson is so terrible that it ruins the end of every vacation. I'm a former travel professional and I cannot believe this airport is allowed to continue to function as it is. It is an embarrassment to Toronto and a nightmare to travelers. I've been through a great many airports, large and small, rich and poor and I hate Pearson more than any I can think of. I am a local. I have been using Pearson my whole life and I still cannot find a smooth way through this airport. For foreigners, it must be impossible. Where to start? Pulling into arrivals is often terrible because parking control is half-assed and control signage is minimal. Check-in is often a pain and machines rarely work as they should. Even though Canada has legalized cannabis, there is no place to use it. Even medicinally with a license. Stupid and inconsiderate. Once you get though security, which is generally clumsy and understaffed, so it takes a long, inconsistent time, there is no smoking area. Even as a non-smoker, I think that is just stupid. People wait for hours before spending hours on flights. Let them smoke. Typical price-gouging once you're through the gates. Frequent gate changes. Annoying. But departures is nothing compared to arrivals and baggage claim. Arriving in Toronto is just (expletive deleted). That's the nicest way to put it. They often don't have a gate, so there is more waiting and taxiing than usual. They never have enough people to guide crowds or form lines properly. It is always a mess. You'll often wait in a line that isn't a line because nobody knows where they're supposed to go. You may wait in line twice because even though you have the card, they want you to use the redundant machine and then meet an officer as well. They add stupid, redundant steps and don't control the flow, so it takes three times as long. What takes 20 minutes in busier airports like Amsterdam or Atlanta takes an hour in Toronto. Baggage claim is almost a lottery. It's that bad. You may wait 2 to 3 hours for your bags. You may have to change carousels 3 times. Half your flight might get their bags immediately, the other half might wait an hour. Nobody ever has a clue or an answer. The staff are the worst. I've been to some pretty miserable places. I actually had to tell someone to do their job and show them what needed done just so our flight could get through customs. When a passenger has to take control, the staff should be fired. This review is based on the total impression of dozens of experiences with Pearson. It has among the highest fees of any airport in the world, and it is among the worst. Where is that money going? If you have the ability, use Hamilton for domestic or Buffalo for international flights. Avoid Toronto Pearson if possible.

Not Verified | Although I have had negative experiences at this airport in the past, I must say the overall experience this time was much improved. There were more staff available to help with the new computer screening for customs in terminal 3 and the ones that were there were actually helpful and polite. We were also able to go through the screening in a smaller room with less passengers and consequently the entire procedure did not take as long. Arriving in the baggage pick up I was amazed to see that my suitcase was already there even though the general area around the carousel was a chaos of many bags from another flight. In addition the PA system in the baggage pickup is extremely loud and one wonders why it is even necessary to have these announcements. All the info is on the overhead screens! Grates on ones nerves especially when coming off a long international flight.But in general a much better experience than 6months ago. However after coming from Germany via Ireland and being at their excellent airports, overall Pearson still has a long way to go.