connecting flight/customs question

[maiapapaya]

For our fall trip our family will be flying out of Detroit except for our oldest daughter who is in school in Toronto, so I am looking at options for flying her through Pearson. Price/schedule-wise at this point Westjet is our best choice. Her return flight would be connecting through Ottawa. I'm just curious for those of you who have done this, would she get her bag & go through Canadian Customs there, then re-check her bag? Or would the bag go straight through to Toronto & she would go through Customs there?

 

[minnie mum]

I'm almost 100% positive that she would have to clear customs in Ottawa and re-check her bag. It's a real PITA when this happens if you have purchased duty free alcohol before you got on the plane.

 

[maiapapaya]

Thank you for your answer! I checked the airport's website (don't know why it didn't occur to me to do that before LOL) and I believe you are right. We are staying CL, so hopefully she will have had her fill of "free" (on Mom & Dad's dime!) beer all week that she won't feel the need to stock up in duty free and have to deal with the hassle!

 

[dontthrowsand]

you clear customs when you land in Canada your first stop but you have to clear prior to take off going to the US.

Ex: Toronto(us customs) - Denver - la
La - vancouver(Canadian customs) - Toronto

Hope that makes sense

 

[maiapapaya]

yep, makes sense - thanks! We have cleared customs flying out of TO before, but always had a direct flight home. We did return from China with a connection through Vancouver and had to clear customs before the last leg of our flight. I completely forgot about that! Although I probably also didn't make the connection to the same procedure for a WDW trip since our yougest daughter was immigrating and we had to report to Immigration upon her entry to the country.