Toronto Pearson travellers experience long waits amid security staffing issues

Travellers wait in long security line ups at Toronto Pearson Airport's Terminal 1 on Feb. 13.

Some travellers at Pearson International Airport waited more than an hour to get through security on Thursday due to a staffing shortage that came on the heels of a major snowstorm.

“The government agency CATSA (Canadian Air Transport Security Authority,) which handles security screening at Toronto Pearson, is dealing with staffing constraints this morning and through to the afternoon, and so that’s resulting in the longer than normal lineups in Terminal 1 and Terminal 3,” Greater Toronto Airports Authority spokesperson Sean Davidson told CP24 on Thursday afternoon.

Passengers were told that they should expect to wait on average 60 minutes or more to get through the checkpoint. CP24 cameras captured long lines that appeared to stretch from one end of the terminal to the other.

Around 7:30 p.m., it appeared the issue had been resolved as the long lines had diminished.

In a statement to CP24, the CATSA says, “During weather-related events contingency measures for staffing are in place. However, all stakeholders, including CATSA and its screening contractor, have been challenged with staffing due to this extreme weather event.”

“Despite our morning capacity challenges, CATSA has worked through its screening contractor to bolster staffing throughout the day to clear passenger backlogs at the checkpoints.”

Pearson Airport also contended with numerous flight delays and cancellations due to last night’s heavy snowfall. Those are expected to continue on Thursday, Davidson added.

“It’s really important for anybody who’s flying today to check their flights status before they come to the airport and also give yourself extra time on those roads,” he said during an earlier interview with CP24.

• IN PICTURES: Ontario’s biggest winter storm of the season

Davidson noted that with another winter storm potentially coming this weekend travellers should keep checking flight status at TorontoPearson.com and with their airline before they make their way to the airport.

“We’ll continue providing operational updates as we go into planning mode. There’s a ton of work, a ton of resources, a lot of high-tech snow clearing equipment that goes into keeping Canada’s busiest airport running during events like this. But it doesn’t stop, we’re gearing up for another storm as well,” he said.

These challenges come as Toronto Pearson works to dig out from a major storm that saw 26 centimetres of snow fall at the airport – more than the entire 25.2 centimetres it saw throughout all of January.

This morning, Pearson posted a 21-second clip showing what 10 minutes of work looked like at Terminal 1. In the timelapse footage, crew members are seen operating multiple plows as they remove snow from a massive pile near a gate and surrounding areas.

The airport said more than 100 pieces of specialized equipment are being used for its snow-clearing operation.

“The snow has stopped, but just because that snow stopped doesn’t mean that the massive amount of work doesn’t have to continue,” Davidson said this morning.

“You can see behind me, we’re looking at the airfield right now, a number of planes that are currently parked here right now, but, but even these planes that spent the night here, they have a considerable amount of snow on them.”

Davidson said those aircrafts will be going through the airport’s de-icing facility.

He added that their snowplows are “still out in full force” on the taxiways, runways, and aprons.

“We have millions of square meters of airfield here to clean up in snow events like this,” Davidson said.

A lot of work went into preparing for the impact of yesterday afternoon’s major snowstorm at Pearson. Among other things, airfield maintenance specialists were called in to clear taxiways and apron areas as the snow began to fall in an effort to limit disruptions.

Last night, hundreds of crew members at Pearson worked to ensure snowplows and de-icing equipment were ready to go for today’s big dig out.

“But ultimately, when we deal with snow events like this, it’s Canada’s busiest airport, we live in Canada. We deal with a lot of snow, and people here at the airport have a lot of experience dealing with events like this, so we know how to do it. We know how to clean up from it,” Davidson said.

Last November, Pearson unveiled its expanded fleet of 161 snow-removal vehicles.

Its goal is to clear a runway within 15 minutes when there is a major snow event.

The tarmac at Toronto Pearson airport is roughly the size of 3,000 NHL hockey rinks.

With files from CTV News Toronto’s Rahim Ladhani and CP24’s Sijia Liu