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Toronto Pearson International Airport

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"YYZ" redirects here. For the Rush song named after this airport see YYZ (song).

Template:Airport frame Template:Airport title Template:Airport image Template:Airport infobox Template:Runway title Template:Runway Template:Runway Template:Runway Template:Runway Template:Runway |- !bgcolor="#4682B4" colspan="4"|Statistics (2005) |- ! colspan="3"|Number of Passengers |29,930,200 |- ! colspan="3"|Aircraft Movements |411,609 |-

Template:Airport end frame Toronto Pearson International Airport, or Toronto/Lester B. Pearson International Airport (IATA: YYZ, ICAO: CYYZ), straddling Mississauga's northeastern boundary with neighbouring Toronto, is Canada's busiest airport and part of the National Airports System. It is ranked 28th among the world's busiest airports, handling 29.9 million passengers and 411,609 aircraft movements in 2005. The airport serves the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) and is the primary hub for Air Canada after Montreal. Formerly run by Transport Canada, Toronto Pearson International 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 (LBPIA) 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." News media and travel agents typically refer to the airport as "Lester B. Pearson International Airport."

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 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.

In 1981, the Canadian Rock group Rush developed an instrumental titled "YYZ" in tribute to the airport.

Location and access

Pearson Airport is located about 32 km (20 miles) west of downtown Toronto. Most of Pearson (including its passenger terminals and airplane facilities) is in Mississauga, but a small eastern portion of land is located in Toronto. The airport 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 Toronto Transit Commission (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.

In July 2006, the LINK Interterminal Shuttle people mover was opened, with two 6-car trains running between Terminals 1 and 3, and a airport staff parking lot on the other side of Airport Road at Viscount Drive.

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 $300-500 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. The traffic on the Canadian National Railway Weston Subdivision caused by the Blue22 service would increase to the point where the level crossings would need to be dismantled (as per Ministry of Transportation and railroad regulatory guidelines). Due to the tight geography of the area, underpasses replacing the level crossings are not feasible options. Residents along the proposed route are concerned that the closure of the level crossings will cut their community in two - hindering business and travel in the area.

The Weston Road railway corridor is very busy as it is, home to both the CN Weston Subdivision (a main GO Transit route handling all-day GO Train service between Toronto and Brampton) and the Canadian Pacific Railway Mactier Subdivision (CP Rail's only link to Western Canada from Toronto and a busy freight route). While the addition of the Blue22 service would be of benefit to the airport, the Weston Road residents feel the benefits don't outweigh the needs of their community.

Accidents

The airport's worst accident took place on July 5, 1970, when Air Canada Flight 621, a DC-8 jet, was flying on a Montreal-Toronto-Los Angeles route. The spoilers were inadvertently deployed before the plane attempted landing, forcing the pilots to abort landing and take-off, the resulting disaster killed all 100 passengers and nine crew on board when it crashed near the Hunters Glen Golf Course south of Bolton.

On June 26, 1978, Air Canada Flight 189 to Winnipeg overran the runway during an aborted takeoff, and crashed into the Etobicoke Creek ravine. Two of 107 passengers on board the DC-9 were killed.

On August 2, 2005, Air France Flight 358, an Airbus A340-300 inbound from Paris, appeared to successfully land on runway 24L in a severe thunderstorm, but then failed to stop and ran off the runway into the Etobicoke Creek ravine. The rear third of the plane burst into flames. The flames had engulfed the whole plane by 18:00 except the cockpit and the wings. 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. Many of the bigger jumbo jets were rerouted to Montreal-Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport because it is the largest airport in the area after Toronto Pearson. This incident is currently under investigation by the Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSBC). Many consider the accident's outcome – the aircraft's destruction yet without any fatalities – a miracle.

The Etobicoke Creek ravine is very close to the west end of the airport. As it is in the runway overshoot zone and has been involved in two major accidents, there have been calls for the ravine to be improved for safety, perhaps by replacing it with a culvert and levelling the terrain. No doubt this would be an extremely expensive undertaking and it remains to be seen what (if anything) will be done. Opponents of the plan point out that if the ravine is replaced by a culvert, an aircraft that overshoots the end of the culvert may end up in Highway 401, North America's busiest highway, on the southern border of the airport. This adds a complexity to the design of any culvert, particularly one for Runway 24L.

Terminals and airlines

Toronto Pearson International Airport currently has three operating terminals: (New) Terminal 1 (or T1-New), Terminal 2, and Terminal 3. T1-New opened on April 6, 2004, with Air Canada being its major tenant. The old Terminal 1, which closed simultaneously, was demolished to make room for additional gates that extend off of the East side of Pier E and gates on the Liner between Pier E and Pier F. The rest of 'Stage 2' of the Terminal Development Project (TDP) has a turn-over date of Dec. 31, 2006; this stage is the East and West sides of Pier F and Hammerhead F. In 2005, the western portion of Terminal 2 is being torn down, and will be replaced with a new pier (Pier G) extending from T1-New. By 2008, Terminal 2 will be completely torn down and by 2015, Pearson will then consist of T1-New and Terminal 3, capable of handling up to 50 million passengers annually. Ultimately, T1-New and Terminal 3 will be connected to form a 'super-terminal,' but a precise schedule for this project is undetermined.

Pearson International Airport is one of 8 Canadian Airports that has US Border Pre-clearance facilities.

The LINK Interterminal Shuttle bus service currently connects the three terminals. The bus service is scheduled to be replaced by the LINK peoplemover, which is reported to open July 2006[1]. Infield terminal transfers are made by Contrac Cobus 3000 shuttle buses.

Malton Airport Terminal

The first airport terminal was built in 1938 by the Toronto Harbour Commission and consisted of a standard frame terminal building from a converted farm house. The original airport covered 420 acrces with full lighting, radio, weather reporting equipment, two hard surface runways and one grass landing strip.

The airport was sold to the City of Toronto in 1940 and used as a military training airport. In 1942 air traffic control centre was added to Malton.

A second building, similar to the existing structure at the Toronto City Centre Airport, was built to replace the old terminal in 1949 and was able to handle 400,000 passengers a year. It was demolished in the late 1960s to make way for the old T1 building. In 1958 Transport Canada took control over Toronto Airport from the City.

The runways for Malton consisted of:

  • 14-32 - a 3,368 metres runway used for test flights for the Avro Arrow fighter from the A.V Roe Canada plant and now exists only as a taxiway to 05/23
  • 14-32 - 11,475 feet north south runway - replaced by 15-33R
  • 10-28 - 7425 feet northwest to southeast runway

Old Terminal 1

The original T1 or Aeroquay One was a round 10 floor structure with a two level passenger area. The squared parking structure was located in the middle and access via a spiral ramp. It was designed by John Burnett Parkin and built between 1957 and 1964. State of the art in the 1960s, the terminal was obsolete by the early 1970s and resulted in the building of Terminal 2 in 1968. The Aeroquay has since been demolished to make way for the new T1.

Statistics for Aeroquay One:

  • Airlines: 10 (1967), 100 (lifetime)
  • Passengers per hour: 1400
  • Passengers per year: 3.5 million (1967), 10 million (1988-1989)
  • Total Passengers (1964-2003): 218 million
  • Gates: 24

New Terminal 1 (T1-New)

T1 is designed to handle domestic, international and transborder flights in one facility. The original design called for separate concourses to handle the different types of traffic. The design actually adopted in T1 places transborder departures and arrivals on a mezzanine level, and uses "swing gates" to allow any gate to channel arriving passengers to domestic, international or transborder arrivals facilities. Currently, some international flights said to depart from Terminal 1 actually depart from the infield terminal.

  • Air Canada (Abbotsford, Amsterdam, Antigua and Barbuda, Aruba, Barbados, Beijing, Belfast, Bermuda, Bogota, Buenos Aires-Ezeiza, Calgary, Cancún, Caracas, Cayo Coco, Cayo Largo del Sur, Charlottetown [seasonal], Copenhagen [seasonal], Cozumel, Delhi, Dublin [seasonal], Edmonton, Fort McMurray, Frankfurt, Fredericton, Glasgow, Grand Cayman, Halifax, Havana, Holguin, Hong Kong, Honolulu, Kelowna, Kingston (Jamaica), La Romana, Lima, London-Heathrow, Manchester (UK), Mexico City, Moncton, Montego Bay, Montréal, Munich, Nassau, Ottawa, Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Port of Spain, Providenciales, Puerto Plata, Puerto Vallarta, Punta Cana, Quebec City, Regina, Rome-Fiumicino, Saint John, San José (CR), San José del Cabo, San Juan, Santiago de Chile, Santo Domingo, São Paulo-Guarulhos, Saskatoon, Shanghai-Pudong, Shannon [seasonal], St. John's, St. Lucia, St. Maarten [seasonal], Seoul-Incheon, Shannon, Tel Aviv, Thunder Bay, Tokyo-Narita, Vancouver, Varadero, Victoria (BC), Winnipeg, Zürich)
    • Air Canada Jazz (Charlottetown [seasonal], Fredericton, Halifax, Kingston (ON), London (ON), Moncton, North Bay (ON), Ottawa, Quebec, Regina, Saskatoon, Sault Ste. Marie (ON), Saint John,Salt Lake City, St. John's, Sudbury (ON), Thunder Bay, Timmins, Windsor (ON), Winnipeg)
  • Air Jamaica (Kingston)
  • Alitalia (Milan-Malpensa, Rome-Fiumicino)
  • Austrian Airlines (Vienna)
  • Condor (Frankfurt)
  • Etihad Airways (Abu Dhabi, Brussels)
  • Lufthansa (Frankfurt)
  • Mexicana (Mexico City)
  • Sunwing Airlines (Acapulco (seasonal), Cayo Coco (seasonal), Camaguey (seasonal), Charlottetown, Gander, Halifax, Holguin (seasonal), Huatulco (seasonal), Liberia (CR)(seasonal), Montego Bay (seasonal), Punta Cana (seasonal), Puerto Plata (seasonal), Puerto Vallarta (seasonal), Santiago de Cuba (seasonal), Stephenville (NF), St. John's, Sydney (NS), Varadero (seasonal),

The terminal is designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill International Ltd., Adamson Associates Architects, and Moshe Safdie and Associates.

Terminal 2 - US Arrivals and Departures only

The two floor, 26 gate terminal 2 was originally built in 1968 as a freight terminal, but it was converted to commercial traffic due to over capacity at Terminal 1. It now handles domestic and transborder traffic to the US for Air Canada and their Star Alliance partner United Airlines, but these flights will move to the new Terminal 1 during early 2007 and the building will eventually be demolished once the T1 terminal is completed in 2010. A 5 floor parking garage is attached to the north of the terminal building.

  • Air Canada (Atlanta, Boston, Charlotte, Chicago-O'Hare, Dallas/Fort Worth, Denver, Fort Lauderdale, Fort Myers, Kansas City, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, Milwaukee, Minneapolis/St. Paul, New York-LaGuardia, Newark, Orlando, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Raleigh/Durham, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle/Tacoma, St. Louis, Tampa, Washington-National, West Palm Beach)
    • Air Canada Jazz (Atlanta, Baltimore/Washington, Boston, Charlotte, Cleveland, Columbus, Dallas/Ft. Worth, Detroit, Harrisburg, Hartford, Houston-Intercontinental, Indianapolis, Manchester (NH), Milwaukee, Nashville, Pittsburgh, Raleigh/Durham, Rochester, White Plains)
  • United Airlines (Chicago-O'Hare, San Francisco [starts September 6th, 2006])

Terminal 3

Terminal 3 was built in 1989 to offset traffic from Terminals 1 and 2. It was built as a private venture and was state of the art. Long-term plans call for T3 to be connected and integrated into the T1 New complex. It also has a US customs pre-clearance facility.

Charters

  • Air Transat (Summer Destinations: Las Vegas, Amsterdam, Athens, Birmingham (UK), Dublin, Edinburgh, Exeter, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Lyons, Madrid, Munich, Newcastle, Paris, Ponta Delgada, Shannon, Toulouse; Winter Destinations: Acapulco, Camaguey, Cancún, Cayo Coco, Bongo,Cayo Largo, Holguin, Ixtapa, La Romana, Manzanillo, Montego Bay, Montreal, Panama City, Porlamar, Puerto Plata, Puerto Vallarta, Punta Cana, St. Maarten, San Andres, San Jose, Santa Clara, Veradero, Fort Lauderdale, Orlando, Belfast, Faro, Glasgow, Lisbon, London, Manchester (UK), Porto)
  • Conquest Vacations (St. Petersburg (FL))
  • Sunwing.ca Vacations (St. Petersburg (FL))
  • Kelowna Flightcraft (Kelowna)
  • Skyservice (Summer Destinations: Belfast, Belgrade, Calgary, Cancun, Cayo Coco, Dublin, Edmonton, Faro, Fort Lauderdale, Holguin, La Romana, Lamezia, Las Vegas, Lisbon, London-Gatwick, Manchester (UK), Montego Bay, Nassau, Ohrid, Oranjestad, Orlando, Pescara, Philipsburg, Port of Spain, Portland, Puerto Plata, Puerto Vallarta, Punta Cana, Roma, San Jose del Cabo, Santiago, Shannon, Split, St. Johns, St. Petersburg, Timişoara, Trieste, Vancouver, Varadero, Venice, Zagreb; Winter Destinations: Acapulco, Camaguey, Cancun, Cartagena, Cayo Coco, Cienfuegos, Faro, Fort Lauderdale, Holguin, Huatulco, Ixtapa/Zihuatanejo, La Ceiba (Honduras), La Romana, Las Vegas, Liberia (CR), Los Cabos, Managua, Manzanillo, Margarita, Mazatlan, Merida, Montego Bay, Nassau, Oranjestad, Orlando, Panama City, Philipsburg, Port of Spain, Puerto Plata, Puerto Vallarta, Punta Cana, Santa Maria, Santiago, Santo Domingo, St. John's, St. Kitts, St. Lucia, St. Petersburg, Tampico, Vancouver, Varadero, Willemstad)

In addition, many cargo airlines serve the airport.

See also

References

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