Pearson responds to long lines on Wednesday night with radical move of “adding staff”
Wednesday night, the lineups at Pearson International Airport were apparently a bit nutty, even by the standards of Canada’s Worst Airport. Some reported waiting in line for up to three or four hours to get their passports stamped—though officials maintain that the wait was only 90 minutes. What happened? Basically, it was a combination of high March Break traffic and a few delayed flights (including one full super-jumbo Airbus with 500 people), all of which meant a large number of heavily loaded planes arriving between 8 and 9 p.m. The customs desk at Pearson is promising to do better next time, with a radical tactic: adding personnel.
Travellers were forced to wait as long as three hours to clear customs Wednesday night, said Scott Armstrong, spokesman for the Greater Toronto Airports Authority, which operates Pearson.
“It was an unfortunate situation which shouldn’t have happened, and we’ve been working with the Canada Border Services Agency to ensure measures are taken to avoid a similar situation,” he said…
As of Thursday, customs implemented an “action plan,” which includes an increased number of staff to deal with higher traffic.
More staff to deal with slow and unresponsive customer service? Air Canada, take notes.
• Pearson tackles airport chaos [Toronto Sun]
• After Customs debacle, Pearson passengers now zipping through Immigration [Toronto Star]
i was there and if you look on the photos no teenagers are to be seen
from 36 gates for immigration inspection only 6 were open – 1 for pilots and crew, 2 for connection flight and 3 for the REST???!!! – again the most expensive airport in the world YYZ with only 3 ppl., looking @ arriving passengers?!!!
from landing to arriving home took me 4 hours – longer than the actual flight – what a shame
A NEXUS card maybe of better help as well. But only if one is coming in from the United States. Would have to line up like the rest of us if coming in other than the United States.
This lack of adequate staffing by Canada Customs at Pearson has affected not only returning passengers but a parcel of mine that arrived at 10.27.pm. last Sunday and immediately entered Customs is still there today, Friday.