Over a 16-season professional hockey career, ex-NHL star Ryan Whitney saw more than his fair share of airports.
None of them quite prepared him for the chaos that was Pearson International Airport this past weekend.
“This is the worst airport on earth. I’m telling you, there’s no other airport like this,” said an exasperated, exhausted Whitney in a video he posted to Twitter on Monday morning detailing his derailed journey from Edmonton to Boston via Toronto.
In the video, which has since gone viral, Whitney says he waited in a three-hour lineup before his flight to Boston, only to find out the 8:30 pm Sunday flight was canceled at the last minute.
“At this point, I go and see there is a 400-person line with two Air Canada workers. There’s a million canceled flights, so everyone’s just panicking,” recounted Whitney, who through a spokesperson declined a request for an interview.
Another six-hour wait then followed by Whitney, who asked to get his bags back so he could drive to Buffalo instead, to get a JetBlue flight to Boston. He was turned down.
“So they say ‘no, no, no, you can’t have your bags. Your bags are already in the middle of no man’s land, you can’t have your bags,” Whitney recalled in the video.
The airline staff told him he’d been rebooked on an 8:50 am Monday flight, and said he should get to Pearson by 5 am, just to be on the safe side. He showed up at 4:55 am, only to be told he’d been rebooked on a flight to Montreal leaving around 6 am, with a transfer to Boston, and that he’d arrived too late to board.
“They never sent me an email. They just … I started laughing, I mean what are ya gonna do? It was either that, or like, cry,” said Whitney, who eventually boarded a direct flight to Boston at 10:18 am “I’m just so in shock at this place. It is the biggest disgrace known to man.”
A spokesperson for the Greater Toronto Airports Authority said the entire industry is struggling to adapt as travelers flock back to air travel after two years of the global COVID-19 pandemic.
“We deeply regret the experience that Mr. Whitney and fellow travelers have endured. As the air travel industry recovers from COVID-19, we understand that the delays experienced by some travelers at Canada’s airports can be incredibly frustrating,” said GTAA spokesperson Ryan White.
White said a “ground delay” program was put in place by NAV Canada Sunday, which added to delays. Ground delays are often used to space out arriving plans to ensure an airport has the capacity to handle them.
He said that every single company or organization at Pearson has a role to play in making passengers have a smooth experience.
Air Canada spokesperson Peter Fitzpatrick said staffing issues at “government third-party providers” have been having an ongoing impact on airline and airport operations.
“Long processing times at airports and other restrictions have resulted in flight delays and in some instances cancellations and these can have knock-on effects not only for our customers but can also impact our employee resources and operations,” said Fitzpatrick in an email.
“These factors, along with an issue with the airport’s baggage system Sunday, are what caused Mr. Whitney’s original flight to be canceled (he was rebooked and flew today). We regret the inconvenience these issues are causing some customers and we are working hard with our third-party partners to improve the situation as quickly as possible,” Fitzpatrick added.
A spokesperson for the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority, which has come under heavy criticism recently for security delays at several airports across the country, said Sunday’s delays weren’t CATSA’s fault.
“Mr. Whitney’s concerns expressed in his tweet are not related to CATSA. CATSA is responsible for the security screening of air travelers and their baggage when departing the airport,” said spokesperson Suzanne Perseo. “Rescheduled flights and flight delays are the responsibility of air carriers. Anything related to clearing US Customs is the responsibility of US Customs and Border Protection.”
Perseo also pointed to previous CATSA statements saying the agency’s third-party contractors have been trying to ramp up staffing as travel starts to rebound towards pre-pandemic levels, but have been struggling with labor shortages.
Monday afternoon, CATSA’s website said security screening wait times at Pearson were less than five minutes.
But the website also noted that the “less than five minutes” doesn’t include the time it takes to actually go through the screening, time waiting for check-in, time waiting to go through US Customs, or the time it takes to get to your gate.
Customs screening by the Canada Border Services Agency took 15-30 seconds per passenger before the pandemic, but now takes up to four times that long, according to the GTAA.
CATSA encourages travelers to arrive at the airport two hours in advance for domestic flights and three hours for US and international flights. Air Canada recommends at least three hours for US and international flights departing Pearson before 9 am
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