toronto airport

Toronto woman describes nightmare experience landing at Pearson airport

With spring travel season back in full swing, Toronto Pearson Airport continues to experience massive delays and extended wait times.

Standstill lines and crowded security areas have become synonymous with travelling out of Canada's busiest airport. However, one recent traveller had a particularly nightmare-ish experience.

A Toronto woman named Katie told blogTO it took her almost three hours to get out of the airport after her plane landed this week.

"It was just chaos disembarking because it was super busy," she explained to blogTO.

Katie's plane landed from Ireland on Tuesday at 4:40 p.m., and she said passengers were kept on the plane for an hour and 15 minutes after landing.

She said multiple flights from Europe had landed at the same time, which created a backlog at customs.

After finally getting off the plane, Katie joined hundreds of other passengers at the customs area.

Katie said the line for customs was so long, it wrapped around the area and went past the washrooms on the other side of the building. Once she reached the check-in machines, Katie said many of them were out of order.

Once she filled her customs forms, she told blogTO she had to enter another massive line to see a customs officer.

"Once I came out of customs, I had been landed about over two hours," she said.

Katie's troubles didn't stop there, as the baggage from multiple flights, including her own, were put on the same conveyer belt. After finally finding her luggage, she said there was another line to come out of the baggage area and into the main terminal.

"It was almost three hours by the time I got out of the airport from landing which was quite frustrating," she said.

The Greater Toronto Airports Authority (GTAA) issued a statement earlier this month regarding extended passenger wait times and delays.

The statement reads, "to prevent severe passenger congestion, airport and airline staff are forced to hold passengers on planes and deliberately meter the flow of arriving travellers into the customs hall for processing by CBSA."

The GTAA calls the recent backlogs a "process that we know and appreciate is incredibly frustrating for passengers."

Lead photo by

Katie


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