Toronto Pearson Airport

For all practical purposes disability assistance at Toronto Pearson has been all but discontinued. Our experience was horrific - both ways - leaving me without a wheelchair at various stages, and forced to run / hobble to distant gates. Worse still my 69 year old wife having to retrieve our baggage, take us through customs, take me and the baggage to a drop-off; deposit the bags on the conveyor all entirely by herself while pushing me in a wheelchair, and then forced to run to a distant gate all the while being berated by staff for not running faster. Unbelievable - but this happened both ways.

We arrived from Atlanta on our way home to British Columbia. We found this airport and the people in it to be exceptionally unfriendly at every turn. Service at every leg of the journey to our connection could not possibly have been any slower. The signage is inaccurate at best. We followed signs pointing us to our departure gate only to arrive there and be told that actually the gate we were looking for was totally in the opposite direction. They make the excuse that the airport is undergoing construction. This will never allow the attitudes that staff here exude. I have flown out of much bigger airports (Atlanta, for instance) and never experienced this kind of ignorance. We will in future go out of our way to never have to visit this airport again.

✅ Verified Review | This is an embarrassing airport being a Canadian. Incredibly long security lines and people working there are totally confused and poorly trained. Their newest baggage security system is faster than they can process people through as they have one person screening and the lines are long. Since the bags keep going through someone takes the personal effects from the bins and piles it in the middle area and everyone has to rummage through to find their effects. I found my computer under a pile of roller boards. This is a very poor system and badly managed. The global entry line was also slower than the regular line as it was poorly manned, not a world class airport. Fly from Buffalo 90 min away, less expensive, friendly and professional.

I arrived at Toronto Pearson Airport yesterday night and the baggage claim area was very crowded and only two people taking the declaration forms, so there was a big line. In the morning I came back to take another flight and the security queue lasted more than 1 hour, which is not reasonable as it was not that big. Me and my husband lost our flight because of that, despite asking many times if it was ok to stay in the line as it was close to boarding. The staff are really unprepared and not all scanners were in use.

I finally checked in at 11:45 pm at Toronto Pearson Airport, I was starving. Unfortunately virtually everything was shutting down! My flight was at 1:50am so I was hoping to grab a hot meal. Nada. The only the available was sandwiches or terribly made sushi. Is this an Western international airport - really? Quite pathetic. Apparently it has the highest airport tax in Canada! Why? Clearly it's not going to customer satisfaction. Why have late night flights when there is nothing open? Unfortunately it is what it is. What can you do? Nobody cares..

✅ Verified Review | I have traveled around the world, and this is by far the worst airport I have visited. To transit through Toronto, a passenger must reclaim his bag then re-check it even though no one inspects it. There is mass confusion because (1) there is hidden signage regarding which of the ten-twelve carousels is for your flight (once you find the sign, which is hidden at one end of the carousel, you find that inexplicably the sign for the next carousel is located at the opposite end of that carousel and not readable unless you walk to the other end). (2) There is little explanation from signage or human beings regarding where to go or what to do with your bag once you find it. (3) No one having anything to do with your bag has any concern regarding whether you make your connecting flight or not. (4) When you eventually get to the ticketing area upstairs, there is even less signage, so good luck finding your airline. (4) Checking in and baggage drop-off are do-it-yourself - 3 out of 4 of the machines for checking-in that I tried did not work. (5) There was only one person assisting the many passengers forced to use these machines. (6) There was no direction regarding where to drop off the bag - the few humans working in that area seemed to be there for the primary purpose of chatting with each other and screaming at you when you make a mistake. Then you get to TSA, where there is more confusion, exceptionally rude personnel, inaccurate signage, and an obstacle course of repetitive measures (If you've been x-rayed, do you really need to be frisked when nothing suspicious shows up on the x-ray? Do you really need to scan your boarding pass 6 times going through a line?). Once you get out of the TSA nightmare, you will find that your gate is nowhere near any restaurant or shop. The seating will be inadequate and the 2 restrooms at the gate can accommodate only one person at a time. Forget charging your phone; outlets are rare. If you trudge the long distance back to the food area (you'll have to ask for directions - like everything else, it's hidden), you will find a Starbucks and two restaurants with limited menus serving hundreds of passengers, and you will be told that it will take 25 minutes just to get a hamburger. It's as though the person who designed this airport was a recluse who had never traveled before. And if you haven't already missed your flight at any point of this purgatory, it's because your fight has been delayed. (A flight at my gate was delayed because the flight crew was a now-show. My flight was delayed, finally boarded, but then we sat at the gate waiting for the flight crew to "complete paperwork.") In the future, I will avoid Toronto at all costs, and I am recommending that everyone I know do the same. ** NEEDS TICKET

✅ Verified Review | Transit through Toronto YYZ (Mike Pearson International Airport), Terminal 1, on 15 March and 21 March. Terminal 1 is a monotone grey, though brightly lit and functional. Destination screen-boards have two problems: (i) They list only Terminal 1 flights, not Terminal 3 flights -- which means they list Star Alliance airline flights only, but not flights operated by airlines belonging to the OneWorld or SkyMiles alliances, and (ii) They list all flights only according to a flight's scheduled departure time, without putting all the flight destinations in alphabetical order. Strangely, for the largest airport in Canada, the standardized recorded flight announcements aren't in a Canadian accent. Instead, they sound as if they've been recorded by someone from Pennsylvania or Ohio - well enunciated, but foreign-sounding. Airside food services are poor. Although the fast-food and café outlets carry locally known brand names, they are operated by international corporations such as Host Marriott HMS or Compass SSP America Group rather than by local franchisees. Travellers need to ask questions to find out what menu items really are. A sit-down café called Roger Mooking Twist offers a "Not-So-Philly Cheesesteak" item on its menu. Only when you investigate it do you discover that it's a vegetarian item containing no steak. The Tim Horton's serves something called a "Bacon Turkey Club Sandwich" which, in fact, contains no bacon. Instead, it contains a couple of slices of a processed turkey roll with added smoke flavouring and reddish colouring. The menu of a bar-café called Bar 120 has a variety of codes shown against its menu items - codes such as Aa and Pw, which seem meaningless. The hapless waiter couldn't explain what they meant and said all they did was to confuse potential patrons.

✅ Verified Review | Toronto Pearson Airport, despite using the super elite line that got us almost to the front of the line, it took us 30 minutes to cross security. There were only two lanes open at 3h30 in the afternoon for international departures. The person that screens the luggage X-ray was also the same person who looked for illegal objects in the bags and as three people in a row had illegal items in their bags, the whole line was stalled by the screening doing two jobs while 4 other security employee stood around waiting. Completely inefficient. This is the only place where I've seen this process.

✅ Verified Review | I have flown in and out of a number of airports around the world over the years. Toronto Pearson Airport is the worst by far. In recent months I have used both Terminal 1 and Terminal 3 for international flights at the airport and both are a complete logistical nightmare. They are so poorly laid out and with a lack of proper and useful signage. It is a disgrace. Last week upon returning from an international flight in Terminal 3 all arriving flights were channeled into a single queue to submit completed and checked customs forms. There had to be more than 1000 passengers from several flights all waiting to pass through a single queue. Pearson Airport is an embarrassment to all Canadians. One organized person responsible and with some common sense could correct all the problems, however, I expect the cause of the problems is related to the number of different departments involved in it's operation.

✅ Verified Review | Coming in from the US there is no regard for passenger satisfaction. Walk 3 miles to get in a 200 person line to access a kiosk and then 3 TFSA agents sitting on their collective backsides with no more than a grunt as you pass by. End with yet another half mile walk to the bowels if the terminal 3 to locate your gate to Saskatoon and a 3rd rate "Tap an Pour" corral that serves ok beer but sun par food. Pearson needs to take a look at what and how other major North American airports do customer satisfaction. Final word: avoid this airport at all cost.