Pathetic Pearson Airport

[Jimmy2]

Well there we go. We're better than Africa.

[atphat]

LOL

[jpilot77]

But after complaining about YUL, by far the worst that operate into regularly is good ole LGA!

[DonutHole]

What Pelmet may be trying to say is this: We are getting tired of taxpayers money and money put into aviation infrastructure being used for other purposes or being wasted or outright criminal misuses! The NDP and greens were adamantly against pay-to-play dinners and golf tournaments and vowed to enact legislation to stop the corruption,,,, what are they doing with the $550.00/plate dinner now and the golf tournament? They are all crooks and liars !!!!!

The greens and NDP have never been in power at the federal level, and therefore have never had the ability to enact any legislation of any kind - politics 101. Maybe you're raging at the wrong target?

Regarding that (cough, cough) high speed moving sidewalk going toward Customs, it has hardly ever functioned in the ten years the terminal has been there. They'd be better off tearing it out and putting down carpet, it's as fast a walk as that piece of junk and way more comfortable on the feet.

You need to go back to politics 101. Under minority government the NDP has had massive amounts of influence, like when budgets are passed and the conservatives needed their votes to avoid non-confidence.

[Rockie]

Politics 101

Influence isn't the same as power. It isn't even the same as a coalition government. While it is mandatory for the right wing to blame the left for everything, blaming the Greens and NDP for Pearson is laughable.

[Broker]

The high speed walkway in YYZ is very high maintenance. Normally, they shut them all down late evening for maintenance. Not the best idea but that is what happens. If pax can't walk, they can always request assistance in the form of wheelchairs and/or golf cart. If you arrive late, expect to walk.

[pelmet]

But after complaining about YUL, by far the worst that operate into regularly is good ole LGA!

LGA will be whole different story in a few years. Was there the other day and things are changing rapidly. From an airport terminal point of view that is.

The high speed walkway in YYZ is very high maintenance. Normally, they shut them all down late evening for maintenance. Not the best idea but that is what happens. If pax can't walk, they can always request assistance in the form of wheelchairs and/or golf cart. If you arrive late, expect to walk.

Imagine the idea of not shutting down the high spr unbelievably all three) of the slower parallel ones were not working.

[ogc]

I saw one of the reasons the escalators are often not working. People take too many bags get stuck at the bottom or top and hit the emergency stop button.

Then no one resets it.

[ZBBYLW]

There are many short falls with YYZ.

It starts with staffing with Nav Canada. When they are using all three runways the operation actually runs pretty well. Unfortunately management at Nav Canada need to get some more bums in seats. Perhaps offer transfer bonuses from elsewhere in the country to move to YYZ not sure how their contract works but they obviously need to entice more people to stay in YYZ.

Once you land and get to the gate, many times our own ground staff seem to not be ready for us, perhaps staffing or just not caring much. If they are present, many times the sterile zone has something inside it. Once the gate is attached we have to wait for an agent because they got lost. It's been said before that if pilots did their job as poorly as other employee groups there would be airplane wrecks scattered around the country.

The terminal is built for significantly less people than is handled today, the claustrophobic costume hall is overwhelmed during any rush and is very stuffy due to the low ceiling, YVR and YUL are actually quite pleasant.

If departing it's standing room only as it seems each gate is designed for an Embraer or CRJ on the domestic and transboareder gates, and for a 319 or 737 on the international size. Without any forward looking design they are simply overwhelmed by 280 seat 767s doing transboarder flying or 450 seat 777s doing domestic flying.

I can't remember the last time I have seen a moving sidewalk or escalator out of service at a mall, without anyone actively working on it. YYZ's escalators have already been covered here.

As a pilot not sure what one could do. The only reason it bugs me is that we pay top dollar for this sh!t hole we are trying to turn into a global hub.

[rookiepilot]

It comes down to an attitude of providing excellent service vs mediocrity and laziness, and that always comes from the top.

Easy tell on a public facility is if washrooms are cleaned. I just returned from Europe. Multiple airports, train stations. All clean. Return to Pearson, disgusting. As usual. Don't expect better cause no one cares.

[seniorpumpkin]

I've seen my fair share of third world airports that offer third world service.
YYZ still pisses me off every time, I think largely because the airport improvement taxes I alone have paid this year from commuting could probably fund a whole new escalator.

[crazyaviator]

Taxes are NOT to fund specific projects or infrastructure,,, you are led to believe that, they go into a pot to be dispersed to whomever they wish,,,,, democracy at its best NOT !!!

[Rockie]

Here I agree with you. There is not a "gas tax account" for road repair and construction. There is only the "general revenue account". I agree with user fees if they are allocated properly which they often are not.

However airports are run by non-profits (HAHAHA) who only pay rent to the government. They aren't taxes per se.

[Kejidog]

Ah. All these problems will go away when they privatize all the airports. Just like Little t and his crew of feel good cronies are proposing.

Tongue in cheek. Yes but does anyone think that this situation will get better?

[Jim la Jungle]

Pelmet,
I've had this beef for a while towards Pearson, especially T3. One day at Viscount, GTAA employees had a stand to promote safety in the escalators. I had a laugh at first, then I took it upon myself to have a chat with them. I said it's nice to promote safety and all but it would be actually better if the equipment worked, then it would be less dangerous to take them. I stressed the fact that half of the escalators and magic carpets don't work most of the time in T3. The only thing she could answer was: "oh I don't know, I work at T1". I walked away before getting myself into trouble.

[pelmet]

Do we even need to mention the absolute abortion that is the new terminal at YYC? Aside from
Walkways being constantly broken, the "swing gates" often aren't configured properly, leaving people trapped in the hamster maze of corridors, long walks through bland sterile hallways that make an asylum look like a fun place to be. Serious lack of windows or interior lighting.


The stupid "dink link" shuttle sharing space with pedestrians who I see almost get hit on a weekly basis (nevermind that it only runs through half the airport.)

Just got to YYC airport the other day for the first time in quite a while. I was quite impressed by the 'Dink Link'. Seems like a really good, relatively low cost idea. Although, I am not sure how efficient it is at busy times. I enjoyed my rides to both ends of the system.

[PostmasterGeneral]

Do we even need to mention the absolute abortion that is the new terminal at YYC? Aside from
Walkways being constantly broken, the "swing gates" often aren't configured properly, leaving people trapped in the hamster maze of corridors, long walks through bland sterile hallways that make an asylum look like a fun place to be. Serious lack of windows or interior lighting.


The stupid "dink link" shuttle sharing space with pedestrians who I see almost get hit on a weekly basis (nevermind that it only runs through half the airport.)

Just got to YYC airport the other day for the first time in quite a while. I was quite impressed by the 'Dink Link'. Seems like a really good, relatively low cost idea. Although, I am not sure how efficient it is at busy times. I enjoyed my rides to both ends of the system.

Did you also know each dink link tram cart cost over $200,000 to design and build?? There was a Herald article on the debacle a couple years ago when the contract was awarded.

[pelmet]

Do we even need to mention the absolute abortion that is the new terminal at YYC? Aside from
Walkways being constantly broken, the "swing gates" often aren't configured properly, leaving people trapped in the hamster maze of corridors, long walks through bland sterile hallways that make an asylum look like a fun place to be. Serious lack of windows or interior lighting.


The stupid "dink link" shuttle sharing space with pedestrians who I see almost get hit on a weekly basis (nevermind that it only runs through half the airport.)

Just got to YYC airport the other day for the first time in quite a while. I was quite impressed by the 'Dink Link'. Seems like a really good, relatively low cost idea. Although, I am not sure how efficient it is at busy times. I enjoyed my rides to both ends of the system.

Did you also know each dink link tram cart cost over $200,000 to design and build?? There was a Herald article on the debacle a couple years ago when the contract was awarded.

Nope. Had never heard of it until this thread. Things are not always as they seem.

[fish4life]

nvm the labour cost of the drivers every day forever

[flyinhigh]

My ultimate piss off came on Monday when someone forgot to tell Nav Canada that airlines don't shut down on holidays. I mean come on, single takeoff and land runways!!!! When we lined up for 23 we had 11 behind us and building. Then add on the storm system that came through and boom Ground Stop.

I give props to the controllers that were working because they were slammed all day and did there best, but when you have cancelled flight after cancellled flight after one storm line passes, all because of staffing. Nav Canada should be embarrassed and the GTAA pissed that this world class hub is a joke.

[cossack]

I wasn't working Monday (I declined the offer) but you only have a small part of the picture. You don't say what time of day this was but I would guess mid afternoon.
Monday (and Saturday and Sunday) were airshow days. During the airshow it is normal to land on one runway and depart another to allow "on time" departures and speedy recovery for fuel constrained show traffic. Traffic will have been (hopefully) flowed back to a rate to allow this.
Usually after the Snowbirds depart for the show, the taps are opened and we're expected to handle normal traffic and get the Snowbirds back in. What fun that is!
From my comfy garden chair with a cold beverage in hand I watched the approach of the storm and told my wife that I was glad I was at home as it was about to get ugly.
Once departures start deviating due to weather it is normal to depart everyone from the same runway, it happens whenever there are deviations that preclude parallel departures, even when staffing is not an issue. It keeps the radio chatter lower on departure frequency so they can handle the numerous requests for weather avoidance. Its called safety.
Arrivals will be held and where possible put on one runway as well. There may be so many that some offloading onto the departure runway is permitted to avoid diversions. What does this do to the departure line? It gets long in a hurry. Its not because we're under-staffed its because we're doing the best we can to accommodate as many flights as we can. its called safety.
The ground stop was a lengthy one but only affected Tier 2 airports: eastern seaboard, YUL/YOW and those within an hour or so radius. Flights from outside that area kept coming and were landed as quickly as possible in the changing conditions brought about by the frontal passage. Because there was no room in the arrival rate for traffic within the Tier 2 zone, the ground stop stayed on for several hours. Its was for safety.
It had nothing to do with staffing and everything to do with safety.

[Back2Final]

My ultimate piss off came on Monday when someone forgot to tell Nav Canada that airlines don't shut down on holidays. I mean come on, single takeoff and land runways!!!! When we lined up for 23 we had 11 behind us and building. Then add on the storm system that came through and boom Ground Stop.

I give props to the controllers that were working because they were slammed all day and did there best, but when you have cancelled flight after cancellled flight after one storm line passes, all because of staffing. Nav Canada should be embarrassed and the GTAA pissed that this world class hub is a joke.

I can't be as informative as cossack, but you sound as your sitting in seat 25D. Get a bit more of the picture before you start blaming NC for your woes. When your dual departing and the south departure wants a north turn and the north departure wants a south tun it's time to think about safety. We get guys going straight ahead saying it's light turbulence, next guy has his radar turned up to max gain and is looking for a turn. We have to dumb it down at that point, get everyone in the same starting point. Last thing we need, and airline management push it to the max, is having a sky full of planes when the shit hits the fan. We get forced into situations of trying to get one more plane in ahead of the storm, i.e. Air France in YYZ. I know it's more of the airline management then pilots with the pressure to move tin, better to be on the ground wishing you were flying then the other way around

[HansDietrich]

I think the first thing YYZ needs to address is the shortage of controllers. The "FLOW" delays into Toronto are insane!

[Back2Final]

That is a problem area that needs to be looked at. I also think departure/arrival slot times have to be addressed. When you have C208's arriving at the maximum peak arrival time mixed in with 777's it seems to be poor management by GTAA. Same with 50 Depatures at 9am. Maybe have someone depart at 8:40 ? I think scheduling plays a big part. Just look at LHR with departure slot times.

[cossack]

I think the first thing YYZ needs to address is the shortage of controllers. The "FLOW" delays into Toronto are insane!

Get real!
The worst arrival flow delays into YYZ are not, for the most part, due to staffing. They are due to weather or losing a runway. Remember that from the Spring?
I've been on many shifts when we have been short and I doubt anyone noticed any delays above the normal line up caused by bad scheduling. If the airlines schedule 32 departures to push back at 9pm, it doesn't matter how many staff are working, there just isn't a way to get them airborne without a line up and still accommodate 56 arrivals an hour which don't always come evenly spaced out.
When short, we may not use 06R/24L, but we still move in excess of 100 flights an hour without any delay program. At times there's going to be bunching and line ups but that's just what it is.
Do you bitch and whine about other comparable airports who run 2-3 hour delays 3 or 4 times a week? At YYZ this is the exception, not the rule.