CATSA vs. TSA?
 

What is like these days to deal with CATSA vs. TSA? Especially CATSA in Toronto & Thunder Bay? Note that this questions pertains only to flights between Canada & Europe or entirely within Canada.

In December I am due to lead an FT DO in Athens, and my wife & I originally had planned to head to Frankfurt & Köln afterwards. Due to a schedule change, I might be able to force the ticket to be canceled & refunded, although I would have a prepaid LH itin on the line for ATH-FRA.

I am considering rebooking it as an award ticket originating in Thunder Bay via Toronto.

Would we be much happier dealing with CATSA than TSA?

I don't know if you would be much happier, but in my experience, on average, the Canadians are politer and friendlier.

You also don't have to take off your shoes.

You also do not have to show any ID at all until you get to your departure gate for domestic flights.

They do have NOS at YYZ, but so far I do not think there is any obligation to use it. I don't know about what happens if you opt out.

YYZ is my home airport and most of my travel is domestic or international - I've sworn off US travel. In relative terms ... CATSA is a joy to deal with. No shoe carnival, belts on, and with the odd exception, friendly and polite.

CATSA in US departures is a more polite clone of the TSA ... they kowtow to the TSA regulations, but at least don't bark at you.

Never flown through Thunder Bay, but a domestic flight originating in a small Canadian town is generally the "have a good flight, sir" type of security.

See the Airports with NoS thread ... Friendly Skies has kept it current as far as I know it. (I have no experience with Terminal 3 as I always fly Air Canada).

In T1, my opt out experience has been friendly 3 out of 4 times ... the clerk I had in October was very professional (even if she was following TSA protocol). "I will put on new gloves now", "I will feel inside your belt area now", "I need to pat down your back now" ... with the appropriate pause for me to interject before she actually acted. She allowed me to move to where I could see my bags, and she stopped the moat dragon from moving them any further.

That being said ... it's also the place where I had my full-grope opt-out experience ...

i fly out of ywg instead of msp, such a big difference in attitude, no barking , no tough guy act, please and thank you instead. when i really have to fly in the usa i get into the system at gfk much more pleasant than msp

For non-USA flights NoS scanners are only used as an option to resolve alarms from the WTMD.

Laptops out, Kippy bag out, shoes & belts stay on.

Overall CATSA is "better" then the TSA. Even for US bound travel when I was selected to for NoS everyone was annoyed that I opted out but remained very professional.

Also - the new TSA "standard" genital grope pat-down does not exist in Canada.

I should add ... the selection for NoS is done by "randomizer" (fancy word) ... step on the mat, get the lucky arrow, or not. Left Arrow - you've been selected, right arrow - old fashioned security. (automatic NoS if you've been SSSS'd). But at least it's not a person trying to be random (by selecting Women and teenagers) - CATSA has tried to take that out of the equation.

In my experience there are fewer "cop wannabes" contracted to provide services for CATSA than there are employed by the TSA. Regardless, both entities get my blood boiling.

I got directed to the nude-o-scope on a recent domestic flight ex-YYZ (at "random"). The other option was a pat-down.

That's not been my experience.

The way things work in Canadian airports, (YOW, YYZ and perhaps YVR) is that lane assignments (eg NoS or NoS-less lanes) are determined by lot. All passengers (except Nexus and other trusted traveler programs) go through the same pre-inspection maze. At the front of the maze, you step on a scale-like mat and by apparent randomness, assigns you a direction and/or a specific screening lane that you must follow.


W/r/t the NoS in YYZ, they have them in the domestic checkpoints and I have seen them in operation. I wasn't assigned to a lane that included the NoS, so I would not know personally the options available to me on a first-hand basis. I did get my first opt-out experience at the transborder checkpoint and was told I had two options, NoS or sweeping-action frisk (this was before the "enhanced" gobbledygook was instituted).

I got "randomized" at YVR - the lucky left arrow ... but I don't know what percentage of people they are randomizing for NoS for domestic travel. Even then, opt-out pat down was a breeze in comparison.

Ok - I stand corrected.

Can you confirm that the pat down was the normal one and the new TSA version?

Is this the case for domestic travel? It could be that I never noticed this as at YUL they have a special lane for people using mobile boarding pass bar codes and I have NEXUS as well.

I can't; I opted for the nude-o-scope.

3 of 4 US departures (from YYZ) pat-downs have been standard TSA ones, but more polite. The 1 of 4 was brutal, which brought me to FT :) - much like the other stories you hear here. No predictable timing though, because 1st was fine, 2nd was brutal, 3rd and 4th were fine -it probably coincided with the TSA "test period".

Opt-out pat down on my YVR-YYZ flight was pat-down-lite, and clearly done only because I had opted out and they had to do something. A brief frisk that I don't think even covered most of my body - hands barely touched me.

A personal choice.

But for others reading I opted out at YUL on NOV 4 heading to the USA (for SMDO2) and received a typical pat-down and not the new enhanced one.

NEXUS security line at YYZ T1 domestic departures now avoids the NoS except for alarm resolution. (and they let you try, try again before NoS)

1) Welcome to FT! At least some good came from your pat-down!

2) By brutal do you mean annoying etc or that they ran their hand up your leg and made contact with your genitals? I made a production of my recent opt out heading to the US at YUL. If they had the ability to offer a more enhanced version of the pat-down they would have.

I had the "full breast-cupping" experience ... both hands, full cupping. .. ...??? It caught me so off-guard I was shocked speechless. You've got to know me pretty well to get away with that! First thing I did in the lounge was google full body scanners ... ergo, FT.

My next two trips were business (so not cancelled) and ended up being "reasonable" (I always opt-out) ... what makes me nervous is my trip in Dec with my two teenagers - not so much the experience at YYZ, but the return flight coming out of the US.

This year I've had both extremes at YYZ US departures - full-on-grope once, professional three times. In those instances it was clear they were trying to just get through it themselves - full body groping isn't easily bought into in the Canadian workplace :).

The last few flights for me were domestic ones out of YYZ, I noted that there's a lonely L3 mmwave scanner at the far side center of T1 domestic security, but so far I have never seen it in use. I do appreciate being able to walk through the metal detector without having to take my shoes off, and once I forgot some change in my pocket, so they let me put the change in the tray and walk through again! The few CATSA people I've dealt with were polite and professional, didn't hurry me through the WTMD when I waited for my stuff to go into the X ray scanner, and waited for me on the other side to gather up all my belongings before doing what I consider to be a very thorough bag search (I carry a lot of gadgets with me), even helping me pack everything back into the bag when they were done. Didn't even look twice at my CPAP machine! (I fail to see why the fascination TSA has with CPAP machines and having to swab them EVERY time). Oh, and I can lock my checked luggage!!! Overall a more pleasant experience in Canada, though I am concerned when TSA tries to impose their methods on us and the aftermath that usually occurs as it did post "underwear bomber" early this year.

I don't do transborder to the US from YYZ, so I can't comment on what it's like there. Most of my USA travel is directly out of BUF, which has been pretty reasonable prior to the nudeoscopes being implemented.

Just for clarification from a January 2010 column, Sorry, Uncle Sam, I Refuse to Be Ionized by the admirable Dr. Gifford-Jones:

Now Transport Canada reports that over 40 scanners will be installed in Canadian airports. Fortunately, all of these scanners will use millimeter-wave technology. This means travelers will be exposed to radio frequency waves that produce a three-dimensional image of a person’s body to detect hidden weapons or explosives.

Radio waves are not the same as the harmful X-ray ionizing radiation to be used in the United States.

Your belongings may be X-rayed in Canada but not your person - that's quite a difference for some of us right there.

Remember In Canada you have the right to leave the screening process at any time if you decide that you don't want to fly.
CATSA is usually pretty good but I did give a death stare to an agent once when she complained that it was taking to long to remove my liquid medication from my carry-on

I didn't kinow that - a good piece of info to have. No LEO escort required :)

CATSA in YQT is quite benign. Take your laptop out of its case and put it into a bin, liquids in their bag need to go into a bin, jacket off and into a bin. Walk through the metal detector. You may be chosen at random to have your carry-on or electronics swabbed.

No one will yell at you, you can keep your shoes on, and you only need to show a boarding pass. If you alarm while going through the detector you may have to take your shoes off and you'll be wanded. I've never seen a grope.

There are only two detectors and belts, but there aren't usually many passengers in line and things move pretty quickly.

They use to post that on signs at the entrance to the security check area. I have noticed that it's hard to find them any more.

I have never been through YUL, so I'll take your word on that front. As to the domestic travel, NoS are in use at YOW (though only one as of a few weeks ago) and YYZ. I'll check YVR when I transfer between flights in a few weeks

Sort of like every other country other than the U.S.A. that we've flown out of. ;) It's only when your destination is the U.S.A. that the screening becomes more complicated.

The quiet at YVR, for example, is so, well, quiet. I know the carpeting helps but so does the attitude. ^

I recently watched CATSA remove a large bottle of liquid from the bag of a passenger who was attempting to FWB :rolleyes:. They asked what it was, swabbed it, thanked the passenger and placed it back into his carry on and wished him a good flight.

Imagine that....

Well, not that difficult to imagine, actually, if one is used to flying from airports outside the US. Thankfully common sense does still exist in the world.

They have NoS at yul domestic security. I thought they were only used as a secondary device. But, some have said that they were randomly selected to use the NoS at domestic.

I have flown inter-Canadian from airports smaller than Thunder Bay (never been to Thunder Bay though). The one thing I would advise is to follow the letter of the law, do not try to leave the liquid bag inside a carry-on. My boss is one of those "oh, they don't care about the liquid bags" people. He got the whole nine yards at an airport smaller than Thunder Bay, bags entirely unpacked for everyone to see, etc. The people treated him like they found bin laden himself.

The one thing the TSA does have over CATSA is that they construct the checkpoints better. The key is to have lots of rollers leading up to the mouth of the x-ray. Many Canadian airports, domestic or to the US, do not have lengthy ones, so the line slows to a crawl.

CATSA does HORRIBLE staffing at checkpoints. For example, in the US, the TSAer at the magnetometer will shuffle you off to another TSA if you alarm. With CATSA, that same person gives you the patdown and waving of the hand-held device. All the time, nobody can go through because the person is not watching the metal detector. I have been in lines with two or three people ahead of me and it has taken five to 10 minutes to go through from that point.

Be prepared for an inordinate amount of BP inspections (none with ID). For example, in Toronto T1, you get a total of five inspections BEFORE clearing the checkpoint (1. Entering Customs Hall, 2. US CBP stamping your BP, 3. CATSA person in the middle of the line with one of those electronic guns scanning your pass, 4. The person at the randomizer (the green arrow thing), 5. The person at the mouth of the x-ray). Then you have to show your Passport and BP again at the departure gate as you board.

When you fly domestic, it will be two checks. Someone at the end of the roped lines and the x-ray bin feeder.

I've been told that CATSA Toronto has a very high turnover rate of people, few are pleasant. Most have the facial expression and body language that they would rather have a root canal.

Good luck.

Contrary to most of the comments in this thread, my experiences with CATSA have been far worse than those with the TSA. I have been humiliated by CATSA time and time again with so-called "random" pat-downs.

I may as well add my comments about CATSA:

1. I always alarm through the WTMD in Canada. Always. I swear I could walk through that thing naked and it would go off. Nowhere else has that been a problem. In fact, a while back we travelled YYZ-HKG-SYD (stopover in HKG). I tested my theory by wearing the same shoes, same pants, and same watch (no additional metal) through all three checkpoints. I alarmed in YYZ, but not in HKG or SYD. Too damn sensitive!

2. Not that this is CATSA-specific, but they don't know what the hell they are doing. Two examples:

(a) When I alarm the WTMD, they like to wand or pat-down my bare skin (arms, even my feet once). What do people hide under their skin anyhow?
(b) When travelling with my two-year-old daughter, I was directed to allow her through the WTMD by herself. I followed directly behind her, but was stopped because I caused an alarm (again). The guy wouldn't let me take another step, despite the fact that my two-year-old daughter was now running off into the post-security area by herself. Had her grandparents not been on the other side (though, at least 25 metres away, and unbeknownst to the CATSA fool), I would have caused more of a stink.

3. Staffing levels often leave something to be desired. They can be damn slow at times.

I'd like to see the whole organisation disbanded and security turned over to the airlines and airport authorities. I don't have to be screened for security purposes by a federal agency when I board a ferry, train, or bus. Why should an aeroplane be any different?