Some of the delays are due to staff shortages at the airport, while others have been attributed to some remaining COVID-19 health checks, which are slowing down customs clearance times.
Last week, Tory Mayor John Tori called the chaos in Pearson “unacceptable” and called on those concerned to unite and find some solutions.
Former NHL podcast player Ryan Whitney also made headlines last week when his video of a particularly frustrating airport experience went viral, garnering millions of views on Twitter.
On Monday, CP24 spoke with Greater Toronto Airport Authority spokeswoman Tori Gass for information on the situation in Pearson and the prospects for a busy summer travel season.
Gass also shared the latest advice on when to get to the airport if you have a departure flight.
Here’s what was left:
Did the federal government move to temporarily abolish the random COVID-19 tests for arriving passengers?
Well, this past weekend was the first with this change, the pause in random trials. So we only had a few days to measure it, but we saw some improvement, there was some better flow for international arrivals, where we actually saw some bottlenecks piling up – passengers spending time waiting on planes and then going through customs. So we can say that it has made a small improvement. We have seen some staff added as well. So things are evolving and we are looking positively at the summer season, which will really heat up in the next two weeks and that will be the test.
How early do you have to get to the airport amid all these delays?
We still follow the same advice to passengers (issued earlier this spring), so if you are traveling inland within Canada, please arrive two hours before your flight and if you are flying abroad, that is three hours. Now the waiting times will be different during the day. This only depends on the flight schedule. There are some peak hours when we have more flights coming and going. But generally this is the advice to passengers. We will also say that you know when you are leaving, be prepared to go through security. There is a lot of advice CATSA has on what can get into a hand luggage and this is something you can do to speed up your journey and when you land here, if you are coming from somewhere international, I really need to get this ArriveCAN app. The ArriveCAN app is the next thing we think we need to address, the government agrees with us that health checks are involved in what we need to streamline and that can help speed up congestion for passengers.
What about the hundreds of extra CATSA control officers hired? Has this helped?
We know that staff has been added. We start to see it based on here. We see improvements in both departures and arrivals. Like we said, there was a slight improvement last weekend. So we are optimistic, but more needs to be done. We know we need to make more changes to be ready for this influx of summer travelers that we are really going to see. So right now, he’s starting to get busy, but really when the school leaves, then some of the summer travel will really peak and we have to be prepared for that, there is more to be done. We look forward to the government making more changes, but we are working together and we are confident that things will be a little better for passengers in the coming weeks.
Do you think the airport has suffered any damage to its reputation?
Well, we do not like to see these things either. So when we hear these words coming from other politicians and passengers, whether it is Ryan Whitney or other passengers, it is not something we want to see and I will say that our staff is here on the ground, we are seeing this from the first hand. Therefore, it is not something we like to see, it is not an experience that we want our passengers to have, we want to be able to make them move smoothly. Just by restarting the trips there were some staffing problems and these health checks were still involved. Therefore, it is not easy to come to Pearson every day and see this, but we know that our staff gathers here. We know the experience has not been smooth and we are really optimistic that with the steps the government is taking things will improve in the coming weeks.
