Does Anyone Else HATE Pearson for connecting flights??

[daver]

I mean really.... we live in Halifax, so we have to connect through either Montreal or Toronto to get to Orlando currently. There never seems to be enough time between flights, the people don't seem to help/care either. Our last trip we went through Mtl going and Toronto return. The Mtl portion was fine, no problem getting to our gate lots of those pedestrian movers which speed thing up and more importantly, about 1h46m between arrival and departure to Orlando. It was a breeze. Our return flight was a mad dash and a missed flight... surprise. We were late getting arriving from Orlando.... I guess the days of holding flights are long gone. We had about 25 mins to get luggage and get on the flight. We booked it and as we were running to the gates.... there was the HUGE line with everyone else who was late as well! We missed the flight but got lucky and got on another about 2 hour later. Our flight in '06 was similar but we made connections. We went through T.O. en route to Orlando. Only 1h between flights... the baggage tram was broken... several staff stood around looking down the tram as it that would help. Then with about 20 mins left it started up. We booked it through customs and just made the flight.
We have decided whenever possible in the future, Montreal is the airport of choice. They seem to have their stuff together... alas Toronto seems to not understand the concept of organization.

Anyone else have Pearson horror stories?

 

[Northstar]

Daver, I too live in Halifax and have sworn never, ever to fly to a U.S. destination through Pearson again. Now that we have the U.S. preclearance in Halifax, I'm having good luck flying Continental connecting through Newark. We preclear in Halifax, so there's no hassle of picking up baggage and going through security again in Newark.

Now for the horror story about the bad old days of flying Air Canada through Pearson...

the time we got off our flight from Halifax with only 40 minutes to our connecting flight (30 minutes late arriving in Toronto)... we had no checked bags so thought we were good... but no, they had made me gate-check my carry on (which was well within the listed size limits for carry-on) and we proceeded to wait, and wait, and listen to the attendant waiting in the sleeve trying to communicate with the clueless baggage guys outside who were throwing all the gate-checked stuff on the cart with the checked bags. There were at least 6 people waiting for gate-checked bags with me, and I have to give myself credit for grace under pressure when I remember some of the language that was flying around my ears!

We all raced down to the checked baggage, waited some more, grabbed our stuff, raced to the unbelievable lines in the preclearance, then had to wait in line to grab an attendant to move us to the front of the line because we had only 20 minutes to our flight!!

Raced through security, which was blessedly and unaccountably fast that day (it was before the take-off-your-shoes and no-gels-or-liquids days), and put on a final sprint to make our flight, where they saw us coming, held the door, and high-fived my daughter who was piggybacking on her daddy and yelling, "Go, daddy, go!" So maybe it's not a horror story because we actually made the flight. But man, DH's back was shot for the whole vacation.

 

[SandraC]

carry-ons

 

[mom_rules]

Connecting flight? or just HATE Pearson in general.

Ever tried a connection through Hamilton?

I think Westjet does Hamilton-Florida right?

 

[Kathleendan]

Connecting flight? or just HATE Pearson in general.

Ever tried a connection through Hamilton?

I think Westjet does Hamilton-Florida right?

I don't think so, not from Halifax. We leave on the 9th and are flying West Jet from Halifax but have a stop in Toronto. We have approx. a 2 1/2 hour stop on the way down but on the way home we have a 7 hour stop which I really dreading with two kids. I was stressing that the 2 1/2 hours on the way down might be tight with having to clear customs. Do you think we should be ok if we leave Halifax on time (6:30 am)?

 

[mom_rules]

You know-2-1/2 hours should be okay. I usually give myself 90mins to 2 hours to check in, go through security etc and still have time to relax and have a coffee and a snack.

 

[Kathleendan]

You know-2-1/2 hours should be okay. I usually give myself 90mins to 2 hours to check in, go through security etc and still have time to relax and have a coffee and a snack.

Thanks, that makes me feel better. I just have to pray for a nice day with no storms and hope that we take off on time

 

[SplashMom]

We too try to avoid Toronto at all costs! The past two trips (and again this March) we are flying Westjet direct from Halifax to Orlando. It is wonderful! We leave at 6:30am and arrive at 10:00am. No hassles--it's great. I believe it only happens a few days per week (definitely on Wednesdays) and we still have to go through Toronto on the way home but I don't worry about it so much on the way home. I just don't want to lose a minute of vacation time with missed flights!

 

[mom_rules]

We too try to avoid Toronto at all costs! The past two trips (and again this March) we are flying Westjet direct from Halifax to Orlando. It is wonderful! We leave at 6:30am and arrive at 10:00am. No hassles--it's great. I believe it only happens a few days per week (definitely on Wednesdays) and we still have to go through Toronto on the way home but I don't worry about it so much on the way home. I just don't want to lose a minute of vacation time with missed flights!

Looks like Westjet does have "seasonal" direct flights from Halifax, to and from Orlando starting in March on Wednesdays and Fridays.

Also flights from Halifax to Hamilton and "seasonal" direct to Orlando from there.