Chuck U. Farlie Posted May 31, 2006 Report Posted May 31, 2006 Just last night I flew into Toronto Pearson yet again... Lord knows how many times I have done so. I have been out of the country travelling and working for the past 1.5 years, and have visited possible upwards of 100 airports in the world, and for me Toronto rants as one of the worsts in terms of speediness and convienence. In fact, in the past 36 hours or so I have been in Jakarta's Soekarno International Airport, Hong Kong International Airport, Anchorage's International Airport, and Pearson... Pearson is by far the slowest and most inefficient and inconvienient. I arrived at 9:20pm... for some reason customs decided to check each passenger upon leaving the airplane. It took me over 1 hour to get my carry-on and get through this line... as they were already checking every Chinese person, Korean person, etc, before they go to the real customs desk only to be checked again! Why check them 2x? Customs was no issue, as I am Canadian, but then it was on to the bag check. First of all the trolleys. This is an international arrival section. Who, arriving internationally, is going to have coins to hire a trolley? No one. I was lucky, I thought of this and saved a toonie for nearly 2 years just for my return. The others had to hire porters, and were therefore forced to pay the horrible rates at the money changers in the airport ($1.03 to $1USD) in order to pay the porters. Finally I got my trolley and went to the baggage carousel. There are not enough carousells to service the amount of incoming flights. My caousel was double booked, and since my flight came first had bags laying all over the ground. It took me 1/2hour to find all of my bags, and it would have been extremely easy to steal a bag if one wanted to. After finally getting my bags I was more than ready to go. If you have someone waiting, the waiting area is too small for the number of arriving passengers and so you quickly get moved along. In this arrival area is next to nothing. 1 money changer, a bunch of bell phones, and thats about it. No place to sit for a beer and arrange to meet someone... Finally... after all this the transportation. If someone picks you up, great. Otherwise how do you get downtown? Very expensive taxi's? Bus to a subway station, and if the subway is running take it downtown? It's absolutely pathetic and a shame to Canadians. Its a terrible first impression of Canada for many international tourists, and its absolutely pathetic that 3rd world countries have better services than Toronto. Go to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (one of the best), Singapore, Hong Kong, or even Narita (Tokyo) for an idea of how an airport should operate. I am disgusted and disgraced by our own here in Ontario. My rant for the day... Quote I swear to drunk I'm not god. ________________________
RB Posted June 1, 2006 Report Posted June 1, 2006 I have not encountered these problems at Pearson, always glad to be home on arrival, taxi always around etc. I was never delayed without cause, and nowadays you have to plan for some delayed time because of those security checks, even if you are Canadian. Good news, Pearson now needs a greeter for officials. I found if you arrive late despite some protest they always give in - its a damm fine airport Quote
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.