Toronto Pearson International Airport has shown signs of improvement in recent weeks, but one traveler and aviation expert says he was bummed to see “mountains” of bags and security lines stacked three times at the airport over the weekend.
“What this tells us is the information that Transport Canada has been promoting about how much better things are, things aren’t getting any better,” Robert Kokonis, president of AirTrav, a global aviation consulting firm, told CTV News Toronto.
On Sunday night, Kokonis said, he flew from Halifax to Toronto. When he arrived at the Terminal 1 baggage claim, he saw hundreds of bags, strollers and walkers lined up on the floor. He also took a look at the domestic security line, which he said was 70 meters long.
“Seeing security lines that long and those piles of luggage was really disheartening,” he said.
This follows a stream of positive news recently associated with the travel hub. Last week, the federal government said the number of planes held on the Pearson tarmac has “dramatically decreased” since early May.
A few weeks earlier, the chairman of the Greater Toronto Airports Authority (GTAA), which oversees operations at Pearson, announced that the travel hub had seen “measurable” operational improvements in recent weeks.
However, Kokonis said it was clear to him while he was at the airport that the chronic problems of this summer had not been resolved.
“Here we are now, only about 20 days from the end of the summer spike and clearly these issues have not been resolved,” he said.
1/ Pearsons #YYZ T1: No peak flow of domestic arrivals at 5:50 pm Continuous mountains of bags in the arrivals hall. The dozens of baby strollers and car seats that did not accompany travelers to their destination or back home were surprising. Again, this was domestic, not international. pic.twitter.com/HWD4iLTPCl
— Robert Kokonis (@Robert_Kokonis) August 15, 2022
GTAA spokeswoman Tori Gass said airlines are responsible for delivering bags to passengers, not the airport.
“We didn’t have any problems with the baggage system last night,” Gass said.
Air Canada spokesman Peter Fitzpatrick said the airline works to minimize baggage delays, but they occur on all airlines nonetheless. Specifically, during busy travel periods.
“These bags in the photo are not necessarily just from Air Canada but on file from other airlines that operate in the terminal. Also, they are from all of our operations (domestic, international and cross-border),” Fitzpatrick said.
“The way it works is that we consolidate delayed bags after they go through customs for faster delivery to customers. We move late bags constantly and they are usually shipped to customers within 24-48 hours.”
He also said it was “pretty typical” for customers to travel with inexpensive strollers and abandon them at their final destination.
We know that traveling can be complicated right now. Check out our Frequently Asked Questions for answers to common questions you may have. pic.twitter.com/AIfrNgAwtY
—Toronto Pearson (@TorontoPearson) August 15, 2022
While mountains of bags and long security lines symbolize travel headaches this summer, Kokonis said these problems simply show a “domino effect.”
He pointed to flaws in the ArriveCan app and the need to upgrade technology in security to eliminate the need for travelers to remove electronic devices from their bags as just a couple of examples of urgently needed improvements.
“For the most part, government policy has driven these really big issues,” he said.
“The bottom line is that we are damaging the Canadian tourism brand.”