Traveller barely makes flight despite getting to Pearson 3+ hours early

Traveller barely makes flight despite getting to Canadian airport 3 hours early (VIDEO)

If you’ve travelled out of Canada’s largest airport in the past few weeks, you may have been advised by your airline to arrive early in anticipation of delays going through security.

This is what TikToker @mirandelz was told to do for her 6:30 am flight to the US with Air Canada. However, she still barely made her flight despite getting to Toronto Pearson over three hours early.

The traveller documented her stressful experience last Thursday in a video that has racked up over 400,000 views.

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“Air Canada had emailed us to say that if your flight is before 9 am to make sure you get there three hours early, which we did,” she starts the video. “We got there at 3 am and ended up waiting until 4:30 with absolutely nothing happening.

“We waited in the baggage line until 4:30 just sitting there, on the floor. The lines were just piling up because there [were] no workers and nothing was open,” added @mirandelz.

Once she was finally able to drop off her luggage, she was met with another long wait at security.

“We ended up walking through security not realizing how absolutely insane the lines were,” she said. “People were literally running to make sure that they claim their spot in line.”

The TikToker estimates that she and her friend probably would’ve had to wait for two to three hours if they didn’t use her NEXUS card to bypass the extensive lines.

Thankfully, they made their flight with 20 minutes to spare.

“That’s the only reason we made our flight,” she said. “I don’t know how everyone else is doing it.”

@mirandelzmade our 6:30am flight with 20 mins to spare after arriving 3.5 hours early @ Pearson Airport♬ original sound – mirandelz

People chimed in with similar experiences in @mirandelz comments.

“This happened to me last week. Like why tell us to come three hours early when we have to wait until 30 minutes before boarding to get through security?” said TikTok user Anni.

“Same thing happened to me at YVR!” another user commented.

One person pointed out that these insane wait times seem to only be happening for morning flights.

“I flew international a couple weeks ago and got through in about 30 minutes,” said user karolinarab.

The delays aren’t just happening in departures, but also at arrivals. Last week there was chaos at Pearson’s baggage claim, with tons of bags piled up at terminal 3.

Long waits in departures have been the norm since late April and early May amid the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority’s (CATSA) staffing shortage.

Daily Hive has reached out to Toronto Pearson for more information on these morning travel procedures.