How's the Pearson (YYZ) airport situation for U.S. bound flights?

BreakingThrough wrote: ↑ Terminal 1 - Friday before a long weekend: Arrived at 530am for an 830am flight. Bag drop off, security and customs (no nexus)... we did not get to our gate until 815am (~2hrs 45mins). The flight was delayed for an hour waiting for other passengers who were still stuck in customs. They do not start the security process until 6am but by the time we got in line around 545am after bag drop off, there was at least 100+ people ahead of us so it was pretty slow.

A friend recently travelled on a Sunday afternoon at Terminal 1 the following weekend to the US and the same process only took them 30 minutes, so YMMV.

StatsGuy wrote: ↑ people who need to arrive for a certain time..eg business travel. we bill clients as soon as we arrive, so the earlier the better and more time can be spent on site.

GateGuardian wrote: ↑ Flew out of T3 Thursday morning. I had one of the first flight out and forgot security was not open yet, so it was a line of at lease 200 deep. Went all the way back to the Nexus entrance and wrap back almost to the AA check in counter. However, once it opened it moved really quickly.

Security for Nexus was closed. However, they opened up a separate line for Nexus card holder (no separate entrance though), which is useless because there's only 1 line. The regular line was moving faster.

GE machine has been updated since that last time I flew in August. They now take a picture of you first, which is having some issues. It takes about 1 min to process before they ask you to scan your passport.

I got to the airport at 4:45am and had time to spare before my 6:10am flight.

TorontoEh wrote: ↑ That was the most annoying part at Pearson,not having a dedicated security line for Nexus/GE. The security personall care less about TSA PreCheck/Nexus like not removing shoes etc. But I understand the lines are busy and they care less of seeing who has Nexus/GE in-line

GateGuardian wrote: ↑ GE machine has been updated since that last time I flew in August. They now take a picture of you first, which is having some issues. It takes about 1 min to process before they ask you to scan your passport.

muscan wrote: ↑ I flew to U.S. from Canada (and back) twice in the last two weeks. Just returned today from my 2nd trip.

Here's my experience from the 1st trip:

We got to YYZ about 2.5 hours before the flight at 9:30am (we had to check-in bags). The security lines were extremely long and if it wasn't for my U.S. citizen kid, we could have missed our flight. Please arrive early for flights. I think 3 hours sounds about right as many people on this thread have said. Because of the U.S. citizen with us, we were able to bypass the long line. There was hardly anyone in the U.S. citizen line. Nobody asked us for Antigen tests. Air Canada agents just asked for the attestation. U.S. immigration was smooth. I was asked reason for visit (visiting family in my case) and that was it.

The return had a bumpy start. The clueless Air Canada agents at the U.S. airport had no knowledge of the exemption from PCR testing for people who recovered from Covid in the 14-90 day period before the flight. The agent simply could not understand it even though I was showing her the official government website. She just let us go with a warning that we may experience issues upon arriving in Canada (which I knew was false). Upon arriving in Canada, we made it to the customs/immigration counter pretty quickly (the lines were short) only to encounter a CBSA officer who didn't quite understand why we had positive tests from before 14 days (and not negative ones). He escorted us to Public Health of Canada who very suprisingly were also acting like they weren't sure how to process us although they let us go after knowing all the adults were fully vaccinated. They also for some reason apologized to us (I'm assuming for all the confusion and lack of knowledge on their part). I'm just shocked that no one from the airline reps, border officer and the public health folks were knowledgeable about exemptions to the pre-entry tests.

2nd trip:

I used my Nexus on this one as I was travelling alone. My family doesn't have Nexus so couldn't use it in the previous trip. I arrived 1.5 hours from my 6:30am flight. The American Airlines agent was also clueless about CDC's exemption for those who have documentation of recovery from Covid-19. She called her supervisor who asked for a "doctor's letter" even though I had provided them Peel Public Health's release of isolation letter (which meets CDC's requirements as they clearly say it could be a letter from a doctor or a public health official). After wasting a few minutes arguing with the supervisor, I was allowed a boarding pass. Security lines were full but not too long. Terminal 3 has a smaller intake area as well. Using Nexus, I was through the U.S. customs/immigration fairly quickly. It didn't take more than 30 minutes for the entire process leaving me enough time before boarding.

My return flight was with Air Canada and the agent was less clueless than the others but still had to be educated on the Covid recovery exemption. This time they made an issue about how my Ontario positive test (from before 14 days) did not have my last name. I told them it's from the government of Ontario!! Then off she went to the supervisor. I was asked to produce my health card so they can verify the last 4 digits on the test. I was given a boarding pass after this. After landing at YYZ, they allowed 50 passengers to get off at a time under some holding protocol so I was in the plane for a good 30 minutes. Using Nexus, the customs and immigration part was smooth and fast. CBSA officer did not ask for a PCR test this time, only looked at ArriveCan -- which was a relief!

ManCaveGamer wrote: ↑ how do you get a Peel Public Health's release of isolation letter? I got a positive result but not sure how to get a letter after i am clear of symptoms