· 1 min read
What time should the car come for a 6am flight from Pearson?
Work backwards from the gate, not forwards from your front door. The arithmetic, and the two places people consistently lose half an hour.
Early departures are where scheduling goes wrong most often, because people work forwards from when they would like to leave rather than backwards from when they must be at the gate. The arithmetic is not complicated, but it is unforgiving.
Work backwards
- Boarding closes well before departure — usually a good while before, and earlier still on international services.
- Security queues at Pearson are shortest between about 4am and 5am and build sharply after that. The 6am and 7am departure banks push a lot of people through at once.
- Bag drop for a checked bag adds time, and the cut-off is firm.
- International departures need longer than domestic. Transborder to the United States needs longer again because of US preclearance.
The drive itself
From downtown Toronto at 3.30am the road is empty and the run is quick. From the same address at 6.30am it is a completely different journey. This is why we do not quote a single number for "downtown to Pearson" — the same fifteen kilometres behaves like two different routes depending on the hour.
Where the half hours go
First, waiting for everybody to actually be ready. A pickup time is when the car leaves, not when the first person starts looking for their passport. Second, the drop-off level at the terminal, which backs up during peak departure banks in a way it does not at 4am.
What we actually do
When you book an early departure we set the pickup from your flight number and terminal, not from a rule of thumb, and we build in a margin. If that margin makes you uncomfortable, say so and we will discuss it — but we would rather have you at the gate early and slightly bored than watching the doors close.
Winter changes all of this again, and we cover that in winter airport scheduling.
