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My wife and I just got back from a month in Europe, and I will tell you that the much coveted Zurich airport, while fine inbound, was terrible outbound, with a 1.5hr baggage drop off for us regular folks. Pearson on the other hand, was quick both outbound and inbound. We went from June 24 to July 24. It took us 30 mins on both sides for what it is worth. I think the Arrivecan app may have helped a bit. We also arrived at 10pm coming back to Toronto, so that could account for the quick customs experience.
 
I have been through Pearson for July/August to Paris, Calgary and lastly St. John’s all ending yesterday. Zero issues and I was in and out without a problem. I think the issue was that I went early and got through in 15 mins vs the hours everyone was talking about. Good thing I have lounge access to kill the pain.
 
Has anyone flown to dublin airport from pearson recently? I want to know how long it will take to clear customs; i've planned a second one-way flight to belgium from dublin after landing in dublin from toronto (toronto-dublin 1way + dublin-belgium 1way).
 
Flew out of the commuter area of Terminal One today, and it left me convinced that Air Canada is the master of its own misery.

It’s clear that the horror stories about lost luggage have led to people relying on carryon. That has led to a huge lineup pre-security at a checkpoint where AC staff measure each piece of carryon baggage. Those bags passing the test are given a red ribbon, which is never checked downstream. The checkpoint was pretty porous, and those of us with Nexus cards were waved around the checkpoint (Nexus is the best travel investment I ever made…it even expedites passage for domestic flights).

The security checkpoint, even with Nexus, was slow going….. again, because more travellers were passing carryon size suitcases through the scanners. Many appeared to have forgotten the carryon regs (liquids in a clear bag etc) and a significant proportion of bags were being flagged for secondary screen. Lots of staff on hand (some appeared a bit inexperienced) but could not keep up with the flow of flagged bags. When the backlog of flagged bags reached the point where the machine pulls them off the belt, the line stopped dead…. no one was getting through, sufficient staff or not.

At the gate, the sole AC gate agent was trying hard but clearly inexperienced and overwhelmed - so passage onto the plane was also slow. And then the real fun began…. there was so much carryon that it could not be stowed, so the flight attendants collected a dozen or so bags to be checked, took them off the plane…. but then each had to be issued a luggage tag and stowed with the checked bags. The gate agent had to run back and forth to the indoors to print tags.

The aircraft for our flight was at gate and available for boarding on time, but boarding was delayed first a half hour due to pilot (un)availability but then by the combined slowness of the gate agent and then the baggage stowage by another 40 minutes. We departed 1:20 late - clearly avoidable delays.

Clearly AC needs to restore passenger confidence in baggage checking, such that a greater proportion of baggage is checked (not everyone flies with carryon only). That would improve the flow at security and also speed boarding. From today’s experience, the carryon volume seems to be what is taxing the system, more than staffing per se.

- Paul
 
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Porter's coming to Pearson.
Link
Probably a candidate for worst kept secret especially once porter signed the e2 deal. But still an intriguing development. I assume they would be place in t3 which creates some friction with WestJet.

I had always believed that they had best chance at being the an anchor tenant should pickering airport get off the ground. By moving to yyz I wonder if that idea is dead
 
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Porter's coming to Pearson.
Link
Probably a candidate for worst kept secret especially once porter signed the e2 deal. But still an intriguing development. I assume they would be place in t3 which creates some friction with WestJet.

I had always believed that they had best chance at being the an anchor tenant should pickering airport get off the ground. By moving to yyz I wonder if that idea is dead
This can't come soon enough. It had been more than six years since my wife and I had flown Air Canada and when she and our daughter flew AC to Tampa last week the customer service was abysmal. Whoever it was that was working the transborder customer service desk needs to take a customer service refresher course as she clearly could not speak politely or in a non condescending fashion to my wife.

Sadly, the inflight experience wasn't much better.

I only flew Porter once back in 2009 to Halifax and back and the inflight and ground product was top notch.

Bring it on.
 
Porter's coming to Pearson.
Link
Probably a candidate for worst kept secret especially once porter signed the e2 deal. But still an intriguing development. I assume they would be place in t3 which creates some friction with WestJet.
This is bad news, in my mind.

Porter's advantage, and justification for higher fares than the competition, is the convenience of the Island Airport. Unless they have unique routes, I don't see how they will attract enough passengers out of Pearson without having similar or lower fares than AC/WestJet.

I fear Porter is overly optimistic that premium economy service for a higher cost, will attract passengers - particularly for relatively short-haul flights under 4 hours or so.
 
This is bad news, in my mind.

Porter's advantage, and justification for higher fares than the competition, is the convenience of the Island Airport. Unless they have unique routes, I don't see how they will attract enough passengers out of Pearson without having similar or lower fares than AC/WestJet.

I fear Porter is overly optimistic that premium economy service for a higher cost, will attract passengers - particularly for relatively short-haul flights under 4 hours or so.
My understanding is that they aren't happy with YTZ (e.t.a. the airport operator), and are looking to expand, so YYZ is it. With WestJet's recent (early October) announcement that Calgary will be their Global hub, perhaps this will mean there is more room for Porter in the east.... Not sure.

I love them as a niche service based out of YTZ. We shall see.
 
I wouldn't call four hours short haul. That will get you almost to Vancouver out of Toronto. The E195 isn't called the Profit Hunter for nothing but the devil really is in the scheduling details in terms of frequency and what slots they can get.

I've got to be honest - i never thought that Porter would survive with 2 DH4s, let alone the 22 or so they have in the fleet now. They have proven them selves over the last 16 years or so and they do seem to know how to run an operation compared to some of the other operators that shouldn't even try to run a bath.

I don't think this is necessarily a problem with YTZ but they have probably grown there as much as they could. The timing for them is good since Westjet seems to have lost their way (if you can't make money with 789s out of Toronto well, then) and I almost smell another 1999 scenario where Schwartz tries to merge Westjet with Air Canada. Without a doubt, buying Westjet was the worst play he made. After spending more than a decade in that industry, and being there for the first failed Canadian/Air Canada attempted buyout it ain't all glamour and glitz. I was lucky in the sense that I made money off of Westjet when he took them private and paid a massive premium to do so. By far it was my best trade of 2019.

Porter will absolutely get my business because the other choices aren't great. Air Canada is, well, Air Canada and what else domestically is left, Flair, Swoop, or some other high cost carrier trying to masquerade as a ULCC? I'm not interested in flying Max8s bursting to the exits with two lavs and flights that can be delayed for days. I'm getting flashbacks to my first year in that business waiting for delayed Worldways flights to arrive at the old T1.
 
Porter's coming to Pearson.
Link
Probably a candidate for worst kept secret especially once porter signed the e2 deal. But still an intriguing development. I assume they would be place in t3 which creates some friction with WestJet.

I had always believed that they had best chance at being the an anchor tenant should pickering airport get off the ground. By moving to yyz I wonder if that idea is dead
I'm not so sure about that. Most new airlines that have started serving Pearson in the past year or so have been funneled into T1 (Lynx, Air Inuit (If I remember correctly), and Air North), largely because T3 is completely out of room despite the continued use of the infield terminal.

The GTAA pulled a real big oopsie whoopsie when they decided to build out Pier G in the garbage lazy way they did, and stall on Piers H and I. The Hammerhead is even more of a disaster now than what it was pre-covid this summer, and while service to the US hasn't fully returned to where it once was (It is close though), frequencies are near back to normal. Their best course of action now is to probably build out a full Pier D with a connection to the existing Terminal 3 (If there is room, otherwise, connect the two regardless) and build out Pier H and I. At least do it now before demand returns to a point where H and I would be fully utilized and not allow for the ability to close and remodel/rebuild piers A, B, C, terminal 3, and the connection pier.
 
... service to the US hasn't fully returned to where it once was (It is close though), frequencies are near back to normal...
FlightRadar24 now shows "BUSIEST ROUTE YYZ – LGA 170 flights" for Pearson over the next 7 days (LGA is LaGuardia Airport, New York City). I think during the pandemic and until recentlly Vancouver or sometimes Calgary were the busiest routes.
 
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FlightRadar24 now shows "BUSIEST ROUTE YYZ – LGA 170 flights" for Pearson over the next 7 days (LGA is LaGuardia Airport, New York City). I think during the pandemic and until recentlly Vancouver or sometimes Calgary were the busiest routes.
Number of flights is not the same as passenger volume. AC flies a lot of planes to LGA, but they're all ERJs, CRJs, 737s, and A320s. Half the flights to Vancouver and Calgary are wide bodies (some of them being some of the densest 777s in the world), and the other half are still mainline jets.
 
Porter will absolutely get my business because the other choices aren't great. Air Canada is, well, Air Canada and what else domestically is left, Flair, Swoop, or some other high cost carrier trying to masquerade as a ULCC? I'm not interested in flying Max8s bursting to the exits with two lavs and flights that can be delayed for days. I'm getting flashbacks to my first year in that business waiting for delayed Worldways flights to arrive at the old T1.
In 1988 as a sixteen year old I flew by myself to London Heathrow on a Worldways 707. Who knew those things were still flying? It was very narrow, six across, but I was a skinny kid, so was roomy enough, and I recall the real metal cutlery and ceramic dishes and cups in economy.

I just returned today from NYC on Flair. It wasn't bad. Here's my review https://www.tripadvisor.ca/ShowUserReviews-g1-d13635959-r874200853-Flair_Airlines-World.html. Apologies for the grammar errors, I'm still groggy and edits are not allowed.
 
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In 1988 as a sixteen year old I flew by myself to London Heathrow on a Worldways 707. Who knew those things were still flying? It was very narrow, six across, but I was a skinny kid, so was roomy enough, and I recall the real metal cutlery and ceramic dishes and cups in economy.

I just returned today from NYC on Flair. It wasn't bad. Here's my review https://www.tripadvisor.ca/ShowUserReviews-g1-d13635959-r874200853-Flair_Airlines-World.html
Solid review. You get what you pay for!
 

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