United has some of the worst contract employees in their global system at this station, I've never encountered such borderline useless, arrogant and disinterested staff as YYZ - so my money is closing the door and leaving people behind.

Agreed. My "encounters" with UA staff at YYZ have been pretty horrible. But out of other stations, for the most part, they've been satisfactory. It's just YYZ for some reason.

Left with everyone on board on Wednesday.
On time.
Meanwhile the first 5 AC departures on the board were all showing delayed....

Has anyone gone through security and USA customs in T1 on Air Canada as a connecting pax recently? Doing this process on Thursday and just wondering if it has improved..flying J, but no Nexus. Thanks in advance.

YYZ Nexus Trans border Security/pre clearance and international queue times
 

Hi

I’m considering flying for the first time since the pandemic started and wanted to get an idea of departure and arrival wait times at YYZ for Nexus card holders for both transborder and international flights.

My credit card offers priority check in, priority boarding and priority tags with AC so suspect that part will be fine. I’m more concerned with queue times for security and pre clearance to and from the US with a Nexus/GE Card and security wait time with Nexus for international at YYZ (departure and coming back)

Thanks
Dean

There’s now a Gold Track lane at YYZ for Transborder, which allows a skip to the front of the line for security. Nexus lanes have been closed for security every time I’ve travelled.

From a Sunday early evening perspective, I waited perhaps 5 minutes for them to check documents (small lines), and no wait at security using the Gold Track lane.

Arriving on a Friday late evening, border control lines were long. They are installing some new Nexus machines that were not working (and yes, they installed the current “old ones” maybe 2 years ago. 5-10 minute wait to see an agent, who was asking a bunch of irrelevant questions.

I recently wrote to CATSA to find the status of the Nexus/Global Entry lines. Here's their response (dated Nov 2):

... At the start of the pandemic, CATSA closed all Trusted Traveler (TT) lines due to the significantly lower volumes of traffic. We are monitoring upticks in traffic, and will gradually reintroduce TT lines as traffic and demand increase and resources allow. For now, we are pleased to share that a few are currently open at our busiest airports, and all airports with TT lines have reintroduced Queue Jump services to allow NEXUS cardholders to bypass the main queue and be directed to the next available line. ...

Can anyone confirm if "the busiest airports" (I have to assume that means YYZ, YVR,YUL, and YYC) have re-opened their Nexus lines?

i did YYZ transborder during morning rush on Oct. 21, and definitely no TT line for security. I was able to use the priority line (via Amex Plat), which is the way to go right now. There was no wait there except for maybe 1-2 mins to verify access.

i do wonder if they will phase in by destination (ie, domestic vs. tb vs. intl). In that case, I’d guess domestic would be first as I suspect there are more travelers there, but the tb morning rush at least is pretty big so could use it.

I’ve also wondered if not having them open was due to lack of staff - obviously that’s been an issue in multiple places. With much travel happening over the last little while, but COVID still obviously around, I just can not contemplate why they wouldn’t want to open a separate line that could at least speed through some number of travelers rather than adding them to the longer queues, but what do I know?

Update from Nov 4 at YYZ:

arrived at 525am for an 8am departure at T1.

there is a holding area where they call flights to enter security (beginning around 6am). It’s based on departure time.

Nexus is open. We were able to go directly there and line up outside the entrance (ropes are setup). A little after 6am they open and we got through security.

Customs opens closer to 630/645 so there was another set of lines there.

All in all, flying first thing in the morning to US sucks right now!

My guess is T3 with AA/DL/WS is probably a lot better in the early am as they don’t have nearly as many flights as AC/UA.

I actually checked YYZ departures on the Pearson website and early AM seems to have a lot of US flights out of T3. My guess is it’s a lot of connecting traffic so planes come in evening time and stay at the gate overnight for early AM departures.

It's always been this way - Monday and Friday mornings have been torture for many years. I use to deliberately bring food through before the Nexus program that would send me to secondary, because it was faster to go through secondary with a box of Shreddies and US passport vs waiting 2-3 hours in the cluster of a line to see a regular inspector.

Travelling today at YYZ and Nexus transborder is open with its own dedicated lane!

I went to check the E gates and didn't see a Nexus lane there yet, only the priority one. Perhaps it is open inside. Didn't make it to the D gates.

T1 I assume not T3?

Correct, this was T1