Travelling through Toronto Pearson Airport has been a lot busier than usual in the last few weeks (to say the least), and it's seriously affected some fliers' travel experiences.
Late on Friday, May 6, wedding photographer Nova Markina landed at Pearson from Cancun with her husband and their 18-month-old child. Markina told Narcity that they waited almost three hours on the plane because of how busy it was inside Pearson's customs, and that the Air Transat flight crew did their best to let them all know what was happening at the airport.
"We carried our 18-month-old through the airport where we were greeted with long lines in Customs which appeared to be due to blatant understaffing," Markina said, and earlier mentioned that all of the gate-checked strollers from the flight were already sent off to baggage claim.
"My husband and I have travelled the world and this was by far the worst airport experience we've ever had."
In recent weeks, travellers at Pearson Airport (and other airports across the country too, for that matter) have been hit with major delays and extreme wait times due to increased travel demand and staffing shortages with the Canadian Airport Transport Security Authority. So, fliers have had to wait a lot longer than usual to go through security checkpoints, which has sometimes impacted baggage claims since travellers are asked to stay on planes until there is enough space for them to go through customs.
While we’re at it, this is @TorontoPearson on Friday night. After being held on out @airtransat flight for nearly 3 hours with a baby, this is a fraction of the bags in baggage claim. @airtransat told me they are throwing my missing bag in the garbage if I don’t pick it up asap. pic.twitter.com/WPkdEXuada
— novamarkina (@NovaMarkina) May 9, 2022
Markina took a video of all of the rows of bags by some of Pearson's luggage carousels and shared it on Twitter.
"There were thousands of bags...I've never seen anything like it," Markina said. "It was organized chaos but it was easy enough to find all but one of our bags."
The only thing Markina couldn't find was their playpen, which was shipped over to Montreal as they refused to pay the $150 delivery fee or make the trek to pick it up.
"I can only hope that it's been donated rather than thrown out," Markina said.
What happens with bags at Toronto Pearson Airport
A spokesperson for the Greater Toronto Airports Authority told Narcity that there are a few different groups of people who are responsible for what happened with baggage delivery at Pearson.
"Baggage handling, including removing from aircraft, putting into the baggage system and the rate at which bags are put onto a baggage carousel is the responsibility of the airline and their contracted ground handling company," Rachel Bertone, a senior communications advisor for the GTAA, said in an email.
"The physical baggage system and maintaining the system is the responsibility of the Greater Toronto Airports Authority."
Whenever passengers are kept onboard the airplane, Bertone said that the GTAA works with the airlines to make sure they hold on to their suitcases until they hop off the plane to go through to the customs hall.
"When customs hall processing times are higher, there can be a buildup of luggage in the baggage hall. In these cases, we work with the airlines to proactively remove the baggage from carousels and organize them in the baggage hall to keep carousels free for other flights," Bertone said.
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
