Toronto Pearson Airport

If at all possible avoid this airport. Total disarray. A close second to LAX for bad service. Do not try to book a connecting International flight with less than a 2.5 hour buffer. Airport has been under a duct tape and bubble gum construction renovation for at least 10 years.

This is the first time we have been at the Toronto Pearson Airport and I hope it will be our last. Thunderstorms put the place in total chaos. We were supposed to fly to NY, flight got cancelled. Tried to find our luggage to drive home instead. Given different answers to the same question by 5 different people. Couldn't leave because they couldn't find our luggage. Staff at airport not friendly or helpful. Total chaos.

Beautiful airport but abominable queues, almost wholly a result of the highly inefficient processing by US CBP. This is a disgrace to the United States, and as a citizen, I feel the need to apologize to Candian citizens traveling to the US through this airport. We missed a flight because of more than 90 minutes spent just in the US CBP queue. Air Canada, when they rebooked us, said this happens several hundred times a day. What a disgrace, and I feel bad for Air Canada for the wasted capacity they must endure.

Great experience customs were quick and easy RCMP was quick and easy bags were very quick and I was out of the airport in just over an hour and mad it to my home. Air Canada mad it very easy for us to leave quickly. we got to park n' fly very quick, Pearson has really stepped up their game!

I travel frequently between the US and Canada. My experience of late at Pearson almost resulted in a missed flight. My wife and I were on a layover from Halifax (a very nice airport). There was no warning that it would take 3 hours to get through two security checks and 5 passport checks, not to mention US Customs that was backed up at least an hour. Corridor "F" is configured more for hamsters than humans. No A/C, no escalators and extremely long hallways that never seem to end. Is this a bit much??

I am proud to be Canadian but embarrassed that Toronto Pearson International Airport is our main hub for travel. Every time a change is made it makes travel more frustrating and inefficient. Terminal 3 is a nightmare with narrow corridors, poor signage and sporadic staffing, and I have had to take flights, often with children in tow, out of the new addition opened last year, which is poorly designed and serviced. I travel fairly frequently both for business and with my family and have developed an increasing aversion for Toronto Pearson International to the point where I will be trying to book flights through other airports and avoiding Toronto as a destination.

I have made transits at this airport on numerous occasions and each time I have had unpleasant experiences. I am fully aware that the airport experience in general is rarely a pleasant one, my bar is not terribly high. But having departed from dozens of airports over the globe I can say that Pearson falls far below the average, especially given that it has recently been renovated and terminal 3 is relatively new. Design: I hope the company that designed the terminals is never contracted again for another project. It appears that often the only way to move between levels in the airport is using elevators - probably the most inefficient method for conveying people around. Compound this with the fact that there are only a handful of elevators and they move slowly and they are not dedicated to specific levels results in an awkward waiting experience. Stairs and escalators are not options. Security lines are always long as they have far too few lines for the number of guests they process. There is no dedicated security for transits, meaning that all guests need to go all the way out to the main arrivals area and re-enter security line again. Security personnel are the slowest I have seen in the OECD countries, not communicating at all with the guests in order to increase the speed of the process. Signage is horrendous. Not easy to navigate the concourses and walk between gates, signs often point in the wrong directions in fact. Due to the lack of seating in most areas it is actually comical to observe how people try to get comfortable while waiting for their departure. People will be sitting on the floor, potted plants, the walkway treadmills, window sills where possible, etc. Staff are alright, but far from welcoming. Airport is clean at least. Baggage has been lost or mishandled often at this airport. Including an instance where I was flying to Buenos Aires and my bag was put on the wrong flight. No staff could indicate its location and I was told to fly to Buenos Aires and hope it was already down there when I arrived. Sometimes this works in my favor though, where I asked all staff if my crate of wine would need to be taken out at the carousels before proceeding through customs. Staff told me it would be checked straight through, which it was, and customs could not charge the duty on the wine as a result. Cannot comment on the shopping except for that the selection of stores is worse and more overpriced than typical airports. I paid 36 CAD for two magazines in one of the "Relay" stores, while the cashier yelled at me. I would avoid this airport whenever possible, but sadly it is one of the few options for connection between Denmark and other Canadian destinations.

I have traveled all over the world and find Toronto Pearson to be the worst for lines, lack of restaurants in the international terminal, extremely rude staff and dirty bathrooms. Surly they can do better than this? I will avoid whenever possible.

Pearson is a chaotic airport, compared to Vancouver, it is indeed a busy one. Terminal 1 was a complete mess during the evening rush hour around 3-5pm. My friend was flying domestic and it took her 20 minutes to get through security. I was flying from Terminal 3 the same night and the situation wasn't too different. The airport is old, signage was not updated and the infrastructure just wasn't too welcoming. Seats? Don't even think about it. There were not many at all. My advice is just to make it to the airport a suitable amount of time before departure (so like 2 hours if you already checked in or 3 hours if you need to check in) because they won't be too many seats around if you need them. The worst part was the wifi. The wifi keeps disconnecting or if you're unlucky, it won't connect at all. Overall, still a better airport than a lot of places, specifically New York-JFK or Washington-Reagan, but it definitely needs some cleaning up and renovations.

This airport is rather pleasant waiting to board an international flight, but returning and connecting to the USA is a disaster. When you arrive from an international flight, they make you go through security again even though you just got off the plane (and before you got on you obviously got cleared by security at the departing airport). Some of the staff are cussing and shouting at us like we're idiots. "Throw away all liquids over 100ml. What does that mean? Water bottles, Juice (Etc)!" Past security we had to go through customs, and if our flight hadn't been delayed, we would have missed it because of customs. They have this system where you wait for your name to appear on a board, which is ridiculous as you just sit and wait looking up again and again to see if it's up there. Once it is, the line for the customs booths awaits, and only 3 people are working on a slow moving line. The whole process was heavily understaffed. After customs, you walk a little to the F concourse for US flights. The F concourse has nothing except chairs and bathrooms so buying something beforehand is necessary. The airport is overall a transit airport that you want to avoid.