Toronto connection en route to Vancouver -clearing immigration & customs
 

Well, it’s always something We are headed to Vancouver in December b/c I will be in San Diego for a conference so will fly there on my own.
My husband will fly from ATL to Toronto and on the Vancouver. His connection is tighter than we’d like (there are flights afterwards if he misses it but no one wants a longer travel day if you don’t have to).

He has an hour and 15 minutes to deplane and get through immigration/customs. He will only have carry on luggage but no airline status to get into any priority lines.

There is not enough time to get NEXUS and have heard that all those programs are behind in processing anyway. He has Global Entry but I don’t think that will help clearing in Canada.

Is passport control in Toronto relatively quick? Automated passport readers? Any tips/suggestions for him?

Hi Denisea,
I haven’t ever had the need to connect from the US in Toronto, since it’s my final destination however since no one has yet replied maybe this is helpful: arriving home off our last few flights has been that from deplaning to curbside/taxi has taken no more than 30 minutes (terminal 1). There are Primary Inspection Kiosks (where you scan your passport and answer questions re: customs declaration) which give you a receipt and you take that to a border services agent (or just get waved through sometimes).

It’s possible to use ArriveCan (but no longer required) to “predeclare” for customs before your departure:

Of course, each experience can be different for a variety of reasons (day of the week, high travel season, time of day, machine malfunctions).

If the airline sells the ticket as a legal connection then they believe it is possible (and may be on a perfectly smooth sailing day)!

For some reason, I can’t send link foe the prescreening for customs, but you can try searching Canada Border Services Arrive Can

denisea, I think that 1 hour 15 minute connection is at or close to the "minimum connection time" for US->Canada domestic flights in Toronto. It should work, but the wild card is whether your husband's flight from the US is on time.

The connection procedure depends on whether the flight arrives and departs from Terminal 1 (Air Canada ex-USA to Air Canada domestic, for example) or Terminal 2 (Delta to WestJet, for example). If connecting on Air Canada at T1, your husband will follow signs for his connecting flight and pass through a border control point that is dedicated to connecting passengers. After border control, he follows signs to his domestic departure gate. He will not have to go thorough security. (Last time I did an international to domestic transfer at T1, my boarding pass said "OSS" on it, which stands for one-stop security. That means no security check in Toronto.)

Terminal 3 is organized differently; he would have to go through border control, exit the customs hall, and then go through security to get to his gate. As far as I know, there is no OSS, so it's slower.

The Toronto airport has a page that lets you fill in your origin, destination, and airline(s), and will tell you the procedures:
https://www.torontopearson.com/en/connections

He’ll be coming in on Atlanta and out to Vancouver on West Jet. So hoping the OSS situation will apply!

i appreciate the information so much…will cross my fingers and hope the planets align that day.

denisea, do you mean arriving from Atlanta on Air Canada and then on to WestJet to Vancouver? That would be an unusual pairing of airlines and would mean a transfer from T1 to T3, which is done by a short train ride. Awkward hardly describes it.

If you meant Delta from Atlanta, his transfer to WestJet will be in T3, but I don't think he will have OSS. But if his inbound flight is on time, it should still work.

Sorry—what I said makes no sense

he arrives from Atlanta on Delta. The connection from Toronto to Vancouver is on WestJet.

it doesn’t look like OSS will apply but he has global entry so may get a break there. He hates to check luggage but if he can check that all the way through to Vancouver and not have to claim/recheck bags in Toronto, he’d do it to save time.