Toronto Pearson International Airport
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Toronto Pearson International Airport (IATA airport code YYZ), located in Mississauga, Ontario, immediately west of Toronto, is Canada's busiest airport and part of the National Airports System. It is ranked 29th in the top 30 of the world's busiest airports, handling more than 28 million passengers in 2004 (preliminary). The airport serves the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) and is the primary hub for Air Canada. Formerly run by Transport Canada, Toronto Pearson Airport is now run by a non-profit agency called the Greater Toronto Airports Authority.
History
The airport first opened in 1939 as Malton Airport. It was renamed Toronto International Airport in 1960, and then to Lester B. Pearson International Airport in 1984 in honour of Lester B. Pearson, Canada's 14th Prime Minister. On December 2, 1996, operational control of the airport passed from the Government of Canada to the Greater Toronto Airports Authority (GTAA) as part of the National Airports Policy. The full name of the airport, according to the GTAA, is now "Toronto Pearson International Airport", but it is also sometimes simply called "Pearson".
In 1972, the Canadian government expropriated land east of Toronto for a second major airport, Pickering Airport, to relieve congestion at (then) Toronto International. The project was postponed in 1975 due partly to community opposition, but GTAA revived the plans in 2004.
After the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attacks, Toronto Pearson was part of Operation Yellow Ribbon, as it received 19 of the diverted flights that were coming into the United States, even though Transport Canada and NAV CANADA instructed pilots to avoid the airport as a security measure.
Access
The airport is located about 32 km (20 miles) west of downtown Toronto. It is accessible from Highway 427 (just north of the Highway 401 interchange) or from Highway 409, a spur off Highway 401 leading directly into the airport.
Bus services connecting Toronto to Pearson Airport include two TTC routes, an express running from Kipling subway station and a local route from Lawrence West station, the latter also continuing beyond the airport to Malton. GO Transit operates a semi-express bus from York Mills and Yorkdale stations, and there is a privately operated Airport Express bus serving various major downtown hotels. Mississauga Transit operates a city bus from the Square One Shopping Centre in Mississauga's city centre, likewise continuing on to Malton.
Although the airport is near an existing railway line, it is not currently served by trains. On November 13, 2003, Union Pearson AirLink Group, a subsidiary of SNC-Lavalin, was selected to finance, design, construct, operate, and maintain a rail link connecting Pearson with Toronto's Union Station, with a planned travel time of about twenty minutes. The service, to be called Blue22, is expected to eliminate 1.5 million car trips annually. The project, whose cost is estimated at $300 to $500 million, remains controversial, as only 17% of people using Pearson now travel to downtown Toronto.
Travellers headed to suburban destinations will be able to use the service to connect to GO Transit commuter trains at Union Station, but early analyses predict that this will be considered unattractive to most, since people will need to take a train from the airport's suburban location to downtown, only to have to transfer to another train to go back to the suburbs. Its usefulness to travellers not headed downtown may increase, however, if a stop is created at the existing Bloor GO Train station, allowing people to transfer to the TTC subway at its nearby Dundas West station. Residents along the proposed route have also complained about planned alterations to accommodate the trains, which they say will make access to Weston Road from the surrounding neighbourhoods more difficult.
Terminals
Toronto Pearson International Airport currently has three operating terminals: (New) Terminal 1 (or T-New), Terminal 2, and Terminal 3. T-New opened on April 6, 2004, with Air Canada being its major tenant. The old Terminal 1, which closed simultaneously, is being demolished to make room for additional gates at T-New. In 2005 after the old Terminal 1 was demolished, the southern portion of Terminal 2 will be torn down, to be replaced with a new pier extending from T-New. By 2008, Terminal 2 will be completely torn down and by 2015, Pearson will then consist of T-New and Terminal 3, capable of handling up to 50 million passengers annually. Ultimately, T-New and Terminal 3 will be connected to form a 'super-terminal,' but a precise schedule for this project is undetermined.
As with many other major Canadian airports, transborder travellers pass through United States customs and immigration at Pearson before continuing onto their flights.
The LINK Interterminal Shuttle bus service connects the three terminals.
New Terminal 1 (T-New)
- Air Canada (domestic and international flights) (Abbotsford - starts fall 2005, Antigua and Barbuda, Aruba, Beijing, Bermuda, Bogota, Boston, Bridgetown, Buenos Aires, Calgary, Cancun, Cayo Coco (Cuba), Cayo Largo del Sur (Cuba), Charlottetown, Cozumel, Delhi, Edmonton, Frankfurt, Fredericton (NB), Grand Cayman, Halifax, Havana, Holguin (Cuba), Hong Kong, Kelowna, Kingston (Jamaica), La Romana, Lima, London Heathrow, Mexico City, Moncton (NB), Montego Bay, Montreal, Munich, Nassau, Ottawa, Paris Charles de Gaulle, Providenciales, Puerto Plata, Puerto Vallarta, Punta Cana, Quebec, Regina (SK), Saint John (NB), San Jose (CR), San Juan, Santiago (Chile), Santo Domingo, Sao Paulo, Saskatoon (SK), St. John's (NL), St. Lucia, St. Maarten, Tel Aviv, Thunder Bay (ON), Tokyo Narita, Vancouver, Varadero, Victoria (BC), Winnipeg (MB))
- Air Canada Jazz / Air Georgian (domestic flights only) (Kingston (ON), London (ON), North Bay (ON), Quebec, Sault Ste Marie (ON), Sudbury (ON), Timmins (ON), Windsor (ON), Winnipeg (MB))
- Air Jamaica (Kingston, Montego Bay)
- Alitalia (Milan Malpensa)
- Asiana Airlines (Seoul via Vancouver)
- Austrian Airlines (Vienna)
- BMI British Midland (Manchester UK)
- Lufthansa (Frankfurt)
- Mexicana (Mexico City)
Terminal 2
- Air Canada (transborder flights only) (Boston, Chicago O'Hare, Denver, Ft. Lauderdale, Ft. Myers, Kansas City, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Nashville, New Orleans, New York La Guardia, Newark, Orlando, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Raleigh-Durham, San Francisco, Seattle, St. Louis, Tampa, Washington/Reagan National, West Palm Beach)
- Air Canada Jazz / Air Georgian (transborder flights only) (Albany, Allentown, Atlanta, Boston, Charlotte, Cleveland, Columbus, Dallas Ft. Worth, Detroit, Harrisburg, Hartford, Houston Intercontinental, Indianapolis, Manchester (NH), Milwaukee, New Orleans, Pittsburgh, Providence, Raleigh-Durham, Rochester)
- Air Wisconsin dba United Express (Washington Dulles)
- United Airlines (Chicago O'Hare)
Terminal 3
- Aeroflot (Moscow Sheremetyevo)
- Aerosvit Airlines (Kiev)
- Air France (Paris Charles de Gaulle)
- Air India (Amritsar, New Delhi via Birmingham)
- Air Transat (Acapulco, Amsterdam, Athens, Belfast, Birmingham (UK), Cancun, Cayo Coco (Cuba), Dublin, Edinburgh, Exeter, Faro, Frankfurt, Ft. Lauderdale, Glasgow, Hamburg, Holguin (Cuba), Ixtapa/Zihuatanejo, La Romana, Las Vegas, Lisbon, London Gatwick, Lyons, Manchester (UK), Marseilles, Montreal, Munich, Newcastle, Orlando, Panama City, Paris Charles de Gaulle, Ponta Delgada, Porlamar (Venezuela) Porto, Puerto Plata, Puerto Vallarta, Punta Cana, St. Maarten, San Andres (Colombia), San Jose (CR), Shannon, Toulouse, Varadero (Cuba))
- America West Airlines (Las Vegas, Phoenix)
- American Airlines (Chicago O'Hare, Dallas Ft. Worth, Los Angeles, Miami, New York La Guardia)
- American Eagle (Boston, New York Kennedy, New York La Guardia)
- Atlantic Southeast Airlines dba Delta Connection (Atlanta, Cincinnati, New York Kennedy)
- British Airways (London Heathrow)
- BWIA West Indies (Antigua, Barbados, Port of Spain, Tobago)
- Canjet Airlines (Calgary, Halifax, Moncton, New York La Guardia, Sarasota, St. John's, Vancouver)
- Cathay Pacific (Hong Kong through technical stop at Anchorage)
- Comair dba Delta Air Lines (Atlanta, Cincinnati)
- Continental Airlines (Newark)
- Continental Express (Cleveland, Houston Intercontinental, Newark)
- Cubana Airlines (Cienfuegos, Camaguey, Havana, Holguin, Varadero)
- Czech Airlines (Prague through Montreal)
- Delta Air Lines (Atlanta)
- El Al (Los Angeles, Tel Aviv)
- Finnair (Helsinki)
- Grupo TACA (San Salvador)
- HMY Airways (Vancouver)
- Kelowna Flightcraft (Charters)
- KLM (Amsterdam)
- Korean Air (Seoul Inchon)
- LOT Polish Airlines (Warsaw)
- LTU International (Dusseldorf)
- MALÉV Hungarian Airlines (Budapest)
- Ethopia air (Addis ababa)
- Midwest Connection dba Midwest Express (Milwaukee)
- Northwest Airlines (Detroit, Memphis, Minneapolis St. Paul)
- Olympic Airlines (successor of Olympic Airways) (Athens through Montreal)
- Pakistan International Airlines (Islamabad and Karachi through Manchester)
- Pinnacle Airlines dba Northwest Airlink (Memphis, Milwaukee, Minneapolis St. Paul)
- SATA International (Faro, Lisbon, Porto, Porto Delgada, Terceira)
- Skyservice (Charters)
- Thomas Cook Airlines dba Condor (Frankfurt)
- US Airways (Charlotte, Philadelphia)
- US Airways Express (Charlotte, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Washington Reagan)
- WestJet (Abbotsford, Calgary, Charlottetown, Edmonton, Ft. Lauderdale, Halifax, Kelowna, Moncton, Montreal, Orlando, Ottawa, Saskatoon, St. John's, Tampa, Thunder Bay, Vancouver, Victoria, Winnipeg)
- Zoom Airlines (Cardiff, Glasgow, London Gatwick, Manchester, Montreal, Paris Charles de Gaulle)
In addition, many cargo airlines serve the airport.
Accidents
The airport's worst accident took place on July 5, 1970, when Air Canada Flight 621 was flying on a Montreal-Toronto-Los Angeles route. The spoilers were inadvertently deployed before the plane landed, and the resulting disaster killed all 100 passengers and nine crew on board.
On June 26, 1978, Air Canada Flight 189 to Winnipeg overran the runway during an aborted takeoff, and crashed into a ravine. Two of 107 passengers were killed.
On June 2, 1983, Air Canada Flight 797, which was flying on a Houston-Dallas-Toronto route, made an emergency landing at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport in Kentucky; about half of the passengers died of smoke and fire.
On August 2, 2005, Air France Flight 358, an Airbus A340, appeared to successfully land on runway 24L, but then failed to stop in a severe thunderstorm and partially disintegrated in a nearby ravine. The rear third of the plane burst into flames. There were 43 injuries, none serious, and no fatalities. Some flights were redirected to other cities, including 12 flights at Ottawa Macdonald-Cartier International Airport and Hamilton/John C. Munro International Airport.