Hi all,

For the first time in a long while I transited twice through YYZ this week. The first was after a connecting flight from YGK going on to ORD. Immigration pre clearance was easy enough, but the security line check (after I had already had security screening in YGK) was abysmal. The line up was long but there were plenty of CASTA agents on duty but they just seemed so painfully slow.

Lots of people were grumbling and the AC agents were having to pull people out of line for priority because of danger of missing flights.

On the way back on Friday afternoon, once again having to go through a second screening process for my flight back to YGK, the line was no more than 6 people long yet it took 30 mins to get through. Have to say there were more CASTA agents standing around doing nothing and the gent operating the screening machine seemed to have no idea what he was doing.

I was asked for my boarding pass as ususal, but then after screening once I had packed everything away, another agent asked to see my BP again. At this point I became rather disgruntled with the whole process or lack thereof.

My questions:

1) Is it always this bad through YYZ?

2) Why can we not have a proper "connecting flights" passage through the airport so secondary screening during transit is not required?

You've just hit my pet peeve about YYZ, my home airport. I always want to ask the nth person who asks to see my boarding pass just HOW I would have made it past immigration and security without having one. My personal favourite was the security guy who also quizzed me about where I was going. Was this a test? Only happened once.

I know better than to use sarcasm with the security people, but one of these days the combination of long, slow lines, lack of consistency (shoes in the bin, shoes out of the bin, laptop alone in the bin or not), the prospect of either being groped by a stranger or going through the nude-o-scope and being yelled at for not knowing the rules du jour is going to cause me to snap.

The only consistency about security at YYZ is inconsistency.

My security rant for the afternoon.

Probably a Behaviour Detection Officer (BDO) . CATSA has introduced this nonsense in its pathetic attempt to be just like its US counterpart. Monkey see....

CATSA is a joke....especially at YYZ. And, like the GTAA, they are not interested in passenger input.

Other than to make sure you are in the right part of the airport there is no reason to ask to the BP, at least no security reason - anyone can print off ten of the same BP at home and bring their ten best friends to the airport to see them off.

Be prepared for at least 1 - 1.5 hours at T1 departures level security today. Interesting to note that only one line open (other than Nexus and special assistance) and everyone going through has bags totally swabbed and scan or full body search. Your BP will be scanned at least three times as well.

GTAA and CATSA is a joke.

I am 20 minute from YYZ and 1h40m from BUF. Most of my flights are US TPAC or TATL.

I can drive from my home, park, get to the gate faster going to BUF than YYZ. Not to mention it is cheaper. I just refuse to pay "airport improvement/service charge" to be frustrated by these jokers.

YYZ loves to get my bags in the xray and then have a shift change so I'm standing there waiting for 15 minutes while they calibrate everything again. They can't clear existing bags out of the xray...that would be too easy.

Its ususally not that bad for me whenever I have a flight, I'm usually past security in 5 mins, guess I got it good!