Toronto Pearson International Airport

[AlvinofDiaspar]

My friend works at Pearson, he said staffing recruitment and retention issues existed long before COVID. They complained about it , but it falls on deaf ears up the management chain.

Sure but the employment landscape certainly wasn’t like pre-COVID.

AoD

 

[Tim MacDonald]

Back in the day I used to say to my GM that we were competing with McDonald's for talent except we demanded that they pass a background check, could work 24/7, including split shifts and have a valid Ontario Driver's License. Shivers travel my spine thinking about what resource and manpower planners go through today trying to find breathing bodies to do a demanding job. I've been out of that business for more than twenty years and I still wake up from nightmares about not having staff to work flights.

 

[TRONto]

Back in the day I used to say to my GM that we were competing with McDonald's for talent except we demanded that they pass a background check, could work 24/7, including split shifts and have a valid Ontario Driver's License. Shivers travel my spine thinking about what resource and manpower planners go through today trying to find breathing bodies to do a demanding job. I've been out of that business for more than twenty years and I still wake up from nightmares about not having staff to work flights.

To provide another anecdote, I left international through Pearson last week on a weekday morning. It felt faster/smoother than pre-covid.

But I haven't come back yet...

 

[mininamib]

Have there been any updates to the proposed GTAA train station? Yesterday I was at the Frankfurt Airport train station for long-distance trains (Frankfurt Flughafen Fernbahnhof) which also has a small shopping centre and two hotels and offices above it and was wishing that such infrastructure already existed in Toronto. I rode back to Cologne in 1 hour on a train that terminal in Amsterdam(!)

Info:

The Squaire – Wikipedia

de.wikipedia.org

This is what the building looks like:

 

[allengeorge]

Have there been any updates to the proposed GTAA train station?

IIRC, some money was budgeted recently to continue studying a Pearson transit hub.

But, nothing in terms of detailed plans or timeline unfortunately.

 

[Woodbridge_Heights]

Have there been any updates to the proposed GTAA train station? Yesterday I was at the Frankfurt Airport train station for long-distance trains (Frankfurt Flughafen Fernbahnhof) which also has a small shopping centre and two hotels and offices above it and was wishing that such infrastructure already existed in Toronto. I rode back to Cologne in 1 hour on a train that terminal in Amsterdam(!)

Info:

The Squaire – Wikipedia

de.wikipedia.org

This is what the building looks like:

I can only dream that the GTAA would have the foresight to design it's proposed transit hub as a destination rather than the current back of napkin drunk doodle. The potential to develop the transit hub with a hotel, office, and convention centre component is massive.

 

[nfitz]

I can only dream that the GTAA would have the foresight to design it's proposed transit hub as a destination rather than the current back of napkin drunk doodle. The potential to develop the transit hub with a hotel, office, and convention centre component is massive.

That sounds how GTAA bizarrely marketed Terminal 3 when it opened - and they threw in shopping as well.

But they lost track of the access issues. Though parking was a lot cheaper back then. But still not really feasible, and no rail transit to the airport, or even between terminals, back then.

 

[Amare]

Just going by the way the GTAA watered down the Terminal 1 pier expansion plans, there's a 0% chance we'll see anything like what see at Frankfurt.

That's unless we bring back the old guard who had the foresight to design and build the current Terminal 1 building.

 

[TRONto]

To provide another anecdote, I left international through Pearson last week on a weekday morning. It felt faster/smoother than pre-covid.

But I haven't come back yet...

I just came back (writing from the airport) around 8am. Zoomed through customs with Nexus. No problems.

Fastest experience on the way back as far as customs. Luggage took a bit but nothing excessive.

Craziness must be exclusively at peak times

 

[Tim MacDonald]

That sounds how GTAA bizarrely marketed Terminal 3 when it opened - and they threw in shopping as well.

But they lost track of the access issues. Though parking was a lot cheaper back then. But still not really feasible, and no rail transit to the airport, or even between terminals, back then.

It wasn't actually the GTAA that opened Terminal 3. Since T3 was privately developed Lockheed AIr Terminal and their Canadian partner bet heavily on the ancillary revenue aspect so the "shopping mall" on the departure level was a centerpiece. T3 operated for five years before the GTAA assumed control in December of 96 as I recall.

My memory is a little fuzzy at this point since I was working mainly out of Terminal 2 but when the September 11th attacks occurred all that pre-security shopping became a liability. I don't know if it closed then or when they did the renos adding the new international check-in desks at the south end or when they added the new security screening area access earlier this decade.

I'm not sure it really is a good idea to turn the airport or associated transit hub into a destination per se and attract crowds of people that aren't travelling. Pre 9/11 in the states when non-passengers could go to the gate areas in US airports it made no sense since it could delay folks travelling. It would be one thing if it was a downtown area but face it - it is located in an industrial area of Mississauga that won't become a leisure destination unto itself.

 

[daptive]

Just going by the way the GTAA watered down the Terminal 1 pier expansion plans, there's a 0% chance we'll see anything like what see at Frankfurt.

That's unless we bring back the old guard who had the foresight to design and build the current Terminal 1 building.

I might’ve missed the posts here. But how did the GTAA water down T1?

 

[daptive]

It wasn't actually the GTAA that opened Terminal 3. Since T3 was privately developed Lockheed AIr Terminal and their Canadian partner bet heavily on the ancillary revenue aspect so the "shopping mall" on the departure level was a centerpiece. T3 operated for five years before the GTAA assumed control in December of 96 as I recall.

My memory is a little fuzzy at this point since I was working mainly out of Terminal 2 but when the September 11th attacks occurred all that pre-security shopping became a liability. I don't know if it closed then or when they did the renos adding the new international check-in desks at the south end or when they added the new security screening area access earlier this decade.

I'm not sure it really is a good idea to turn the airport or associated transit hub into a destination per se and attract crowds of people that aren't travelling. Pre 9/11 in the states when non-passengers could go to the gate areas in US airports it made no sense since it could delay folks travelling. It would be one thing if it was a downtown area but face it - it is located in an industrial area of Mississauga that won't become a leisure destination unto itself.

Singapore is seemingly trying this strategy (at a much grander scale) with their Changi airport.

 

[Tim MacDonald]

Singapore is seemingly trying this strategy (at a much grander scale) with their Changi airport.

Most of those are transit passengers so they are at the airport anyway.

 

[north-of-anything]

I recently filled out a survey that was emailed out by Vox Pop Labs, with a focus on "social and environmental accountability" at Pearson. The suggestions survey takers were asked to rate ranged from the theoretically simple (e.g. charging airlines extra for night flights) to the ambitious (e.g. remodeling terminal buildings to lower energy usage) to the bizarre (e.g. planting a tree for every passenger ticket sold).
In the section for additional comments I said they need to build an intermodal transport hub, since transit only got mentioned in one question of dozens, to my best recollection.

 

[Woodbridge_Heights]

That sounds how GTAA bizarrely marketed Terminal 3 when it opened - and they threw in shopping as well.

But they lost track of the access issues. Though parking was a lot cheaper back then. But still not really feasible, and no rail transit to the airport, or even between terminals, back then.

Not really talking about a shopping mall here. Though the T3 experiment was indeed absurd. Office space, hotels, and convention space are the types of uses that are common in an "airport city" development that are popping up. For me specifically, the fact that GTAA owns both the international centre and the Airway centre (5915 - 5955 airport rd.) presents an opportunity for them to develop replacements for these properties with new facilities and open the land up for redevelopment. At least it would allow for some of the development costs for the intermodal hub to be recovered. In this way the Intermodal hub and the area surrounding it becomes a destination in and of itself rather than be just a weigh station for the airport.

I guess I can see the argument of not wanting to attract any more people to the area than is needed, but it's not like noone is heading to the international centre or the airway centre offices right now.