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May 28, 2005

Infield fly

A lot can happen in two hours. You can touch down at Heathrow Airport, clear UK customs, pick up your bag, walk to the Heathrow Central Bus Station, buy a bus ticket, and arrive at Gatwick Airport. Or, you can touch down at Pearson, get on a bus that takes you at a light jogging pace to the main part of new Terminal One, walk up an escalator to a jam-packed immigration hall, wait fifty minutes in line to clear immigration — that's five-zero, 50 — pick up your bag and stand in line for 20 further minutes to hand your absolutely useless customs declaration form to some twat, and then join the queue for the taxis.

During my two weeks in the less threatening quarters of Eastern Europe, I experienced the travel and border-crossing bureaucracies of three post-communist nations: Hungary, Slovenia and Croatia. Oddities linger, no question. For the privilege of using 40-odd kilometres of Slovenian highway you are subject to Hungarian exit controls, Slovenian entry controls, Slovenian exit controls and Croatian entry controls — passports are stamped, or not, seemingly at random, and few if any words are exchanged. Buying two bottles of mineral water on a Hungarian train, meanwhile, involves a hand-written receipt that is ceremoniously stamped by the proprietress of the trolley.

Those are curiosities and petty annoyances. Pearson is a disgrace.

First of all, Air Canada: what in the name of Max Ward were they thinking with this "infield terminal" nonsense? Why would they force the passengers who have paid the most, who fly the airline's most prestigious routes (with apologies to the 5pm YYZ-YUL shuttle), to go through this absurd bus ordeal when Terminal Two is all but empty? T2 used to handle Air Canada's entire operations, if memory serves; currently its only tenant, other than Air Canada and United's essentially merged US services, is WestJet, which operates about 20-25 flights a day. No doubt I don't understand all the ins and outs of the decision, but they might consider posting said ins and outs on the shuttle buses — enquiring and enraged minds certainly want to know, and lord knows they have time to kill.

Next, Canada Customs and Immigration: well, I just plain don't like Canada Customs and Immigration. Fifty minutes! There were 22 closed desks in that immigration hall, and no organized queuing system — thus, when the Queen gave her assent and two new desks finally opened, it allowed the people who had been waiting the shortest period of time to rush to the front. If you're going to trap people in a sweaty room for an hour after they've gotten off seven-hour trans-Atlantic marathons, the least you can present them with is an organized and fair incarceration.

(As an aside, years ago I remember flying into Heathrow and seeing the immigration hall divided up into three categories: EU Citizens, All Others, and Air Jamaica. I don't want to get into the whole profiling thing here, but clearly the 7am from Kingston was holding things up a little yesterday. Canada and the US seem reluctant to offer speedier immigration service for their citizens, and I don't understand why. It wouldn't be a problem if they just put on enough people, but if they're unwilling to do so, I say to hell with the tourists — I just want to go home.)

Alright, enough whinging. Just this: the fare I got required that I fly out through Montreal. My flight landed at Trudeau at the gate adjacent to my flight to London; I had time for a couple of $6.75 bottles of beer; it was seamless. And it occurred to me yesterday, as I gazed upon that 20-minute line to hand in my declaration that I had not visited a farm while overseas, that I would have been better off flying back through Montreal too. Got that, fellas? It's nearly as quick, and a thousand times less aggravating, for the international traveller to connect to Pearson as it is to fly direct. For heaven's sake, pull your heads out of your asses.

Posted by Chris Selley at May 28, 2005 09:49 AM