[Reecemartin]

A friend was through Pearson recently and remarked about how crowded it is. We really are putting a ton of pax pressure on the terminals.

Gotta get started on the expanded T1 asap, but it's still some time off iirc

I also really wish GTAA would think bigger with things like retail, services etc. Vancouver does this stuff way better (much less Singapore) and we should at the very least be roughly on part with our friends on the West Coast.

I'd also love a better link between T1 and T3 - say if you don't want to use the Ski Lift

 

[nfitz]

I also really wish GTAA would think bigger with things like retail, services etc. Vancouver does this stuff way better (much less Singapore) and we should at the very least be roughly on part with our friends on the West Coast.

Vancouver? The airport with all the red-eyes, but you are stranded after security forever, with everything closed? In a terminal that half of it looks like it was built in the 1960s? The wing that Porter flies from is prehistoric.

 

[PL1]

Vancouver? The airport with all the red-eyes, but you are stranded after security forever, with everything closed? In a terminal that half of it looks like it was built in the 1960s? The wing that Porter flies from is prehistoric.

Have you been to YVR recently? There are older parts, but large parts are.either newish (since the Olympics), or have been renovated

 

[nfitz]

Have you been to YVR recently? There are older parts, but large parts are.either newish (since the Olympics), or have been renovated

Yes, I fly out of it regularly - though not since New Years. I haven't seen any major construction for a while. Yeah, there's a corridor here and there where they are doing a bit of refinishing ...

Perhaps they added another half-height stone wall around another part of the baggage pick-up area for people to sit on?

Seriously though, what have the done in 2025?

 

[PL1]

Yes, I fly out of it regularly - though not since New Years. I haven't seen any major construction for a while. Yeah, there's a corridor here and there where they are doing a bit of refinishing ...

Perhaps they added another half-height stone wall around another part of the baggage pick-up area for people to sit on?

Seriously though, what have the done in 2025?

I was last there in November, so I can't comment on 2025. I think most of the recent changes are past security... Anyway, it's a lot different from the late '90s when I lived there

 

[WillTo]

CBC posted an old report from their archives on the very crowded old T1.

 

[Bojaxs]

A friend was through Pearson recently and remarked about how crowded it is.

I took this photo on Saturday June 14th a couple hours before my flight to Manchester.

This was my third time going through Terminal 1 this year. First two trips to London and this one to Manchester. It's been like this every time I go. The first trip I didn't care so much, but by the third trip, the deficiencies of terminal 1 were becoming more obvious to me.

It's also the landing at Pearson that is a disaster. Today, As I was standing in the queue to speak to a CBSA agent, I joked to the people behind me that it's easier for me to enter the U.K. than it is for me to enter my own country of Canada. I stood in line for roughly 10-15 minutes only to be told by a staff member that I didn't need to be line because I was a Canadian citizen. Where as the last time they told me I still had to wait in line and I ended up speaking with a CBSA agent. Even after getting my passport and face scanned and printing off that silly paper slip to hand to the guard after you grab your luggage.

With the U.K.'s new ETA for designated countries(which includes Canada), I just scan my passport, have my face scanned and the gates open up for me and I enter the U.K.. All three trips I never once spoke to a border guard. No paper slips to hand to a guard. It was strange how easy it was for me to walk into another country. It was also rather quick because countries that fall under the U.K.'s ETA program get their own designated line at customs at U.K. airports.

 

[David_Brown]

The past two summers I flew to Seoul departing from Terminal 1. It took me less than 20 minutes to drop off my bag and clear security. Seoul Incheon (a much better airport) took forever both arriving and departing. Maybe I was just lucky, or the time of day (early afternoon departure).

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

If I remember correctly - the problem with overcrowding at T1 Pier F (specifically the Hammerhead) might also have something to do with the expansion of retail in what used to be seating/waiting areas of the terminal. It also affected the general visibility and visual corridors in the space - you can't sit in one corner and easily see when a gate starts boarding, so everyone just tend to congregate around them, making the problem that much worse.

AoD

 

[Adjei]

Vancouver? The airport with all the red-eyes, but you are stranded after security forever, with everything closed? In a terminal that half of it looks like it was built in the 1960s? The wing that Porter flies from is prehistoric.

I was just in Vancouver airport and I travel through there sometimes. I think it looks better than Pearson and is way more neater.

 

[nfitz]

I was just in Vancouver airport and I travel through there sometimes. I think it looks better than Pearson and is way more neater.

The washrooms are disgusting.

The domestic terminal has certainly improved there - but the denigrations compared to Pearson surprise me.

 

[Richard White]

I am sitting in Terminal 3 right now at gate C32.

The crowding is insane but the butter chicken meatballs are delicious.

 

[Dan416]

I find that the security at Pearson is very quick, and as a Nexus user, I have zero wait for the customs, and bags have been unloaded relatively quickly. The downside of arriving at T1 is the verrrrrry long walk from your arrival gate to the passport/customs area.

And as mentioned above, the crowds in the departures areas have been crazy lately. I get that all the retail and restaurants get in the way, but they're not particularly new are they? I don't remember this kind of crowding before. But regardless, the crowding is very real. When I was in Vancouver a couple years ago, I was surprised how organized Air Canada was for boarding. It made me realize that Air Canada in and of itself is not the reason that boarding at Pearson sucks, it's just the airport itself. And to be fair, the airport in Warsaw suffers from similar overcrowding as well, but not quite as bad as the much higher capacity Pearson.

 

[WillTo]

A part of the issue there isn't anywhere to line up that doesn't block the corridor.

 

[Reecemartin]

Alright I guess it's time to use the ignore feature. Not that I should be surprised. The trolling is infantile.

I say something positive about something, and the response from Nate is immediate that I am wrong.

Vancouver? The airport with all the red-eyes, but you are stranded after security forever, with everything closed? In a terminal that half of it looks like it was built in the 1960s? The wing that Porter flies from is prehistoric.

The washrooms are disgusting.

The domestic terminal has certainly improved there - but the denigrations compared to Pearson surprise me.

Oh yeah, Vancouver airport, we've nothing to learn from them . . . .

"YVR is the only airport to receive the [SkyTrax] designation of Best Airport in North America 14 times."

And yeah, having flown between them over 100 times, the bathrooms are remarkably clean (that the opposite would be said about something where that airport specifically does a good job is telling), and consistently better than Pearson.

Hopefully yes, we will imitate more.