Wow..who flew into the T1 US/International terminal tonite? I flew in from the US with Air Canada at around 8:30pm, and encountered a line-up going into the custom's hall. They lined off the escalator/stairs going down, and started a new lines going through the 2nd floor hallways....

Luckily, I had my nexus card, and was able to bypass the 2nd floor lines, and head down to the customs hall....Inside it was full to the max...
There was probably 1 border agent working for every 2-3 empty stalls.

If I have to guestimate, it'll be at least 2-3 hours for someone get through customs.
This is a disgrace to the GTAA...Most 3rd world countries have better customs process.

Something weird or the conspiracy theorist in me, I tried to take a picture of the 2nd floor overflow hallway with my blackberry..Just as i was clicking the camera, my blackberry shutdown and rebooted....lol...

YYZ I assume?

Sorry...should've mention it, YYZ T1...

2nd time in less than a month, lineups into customs were greater than 2 hours.

That's a usual scare for me as I get into YYZ. It baffles me why they can't (or don't want to?) improve the system.

And some of you want EK to fly into YYZ every day. Look at the chaos its three A380s cause at customs already! And if AC's PEK, PVG and HKG flights all arrive a little late it gets really crazy between 8p and 9p...

How is this the GTAAs fault? Do they decide of staffing levels for the CBSA?

CBSA should have all the inbound flights and the max capacities....so they could staff the counters accordingly....so I am not sure why this is happening.

Some form of industrial action?

Yes, SH if its not EK it could be other airlines flying in their 380, so lets not focus on EK and 380's, the blame should be on the GTAA for building a shoddy airport and that cannot accomodate long lines. Wait till the games start here in Toronto lets see how this airport and the transit system accomodate all the visitors. I thought ours was a world class airport.

What can a world class airport do without adequate staffing levels? From the first post it appears there were 2 to 3 empty stalls for every manned stall. So at the best you were processing at either 33% or 25% of what the facility should be able to handle at 100% staffing levels. This could be a staffing issue from CBSA as opposed to an airport design issue..

The design flaws in the arrival immig hall creates an overflow mess into the corridors etc. Yes agreed that staffing is another issue as well but not the only fault.

Commie,

As a Nexus card holder how did you go about bypassing the lines? Was there anyone there in an official capacity allowing you to go by or did you just have to "force" your way through?

Since there is a shortage of staff, I doubt if the OP was directed by a person, he probably had to push his way through or manouvre carefully so as to get to the Nexus area.

My flight from Atlanta landed around 1:30, I was through customs/baggage pickup/security and finally having a beer in the MLL in under 20 min! I gather this will not happen all of the time, however, I'll take it when I can!

I arrive about an hour later from DCA.
We then had to wait for a gate (20 minutes) and then another 20 minutes for an agent to open the door.

Once at the top of the escaltor, we were directed to the right into a long line of people holding to await permission to go downstairs.

They were yelling for connections so I was able to move to the front in about 20 minutes. Local YYZ people were not allowed to come forward.

They had police and other officials to "manage" the crowd.

I bought a full fare ticket DCA-YYZ-YVR (stop) and then on to ICN.

I am a *G and I won't be buying an tickets to transit YYZ T1 anytime soon even though it is not the fault of AC.

I too agree that about 1/3 booths were occupied.