I have found an affordable flight Seattle to London with a transfer in Toronto. I am worried about the time between flights, as they leave just under 2 hours and I see that I would have to change terminals. I also found an older post that addressed this problem. There was still a little confusion about the process you must go through in Canada. For example, would my bag be checked through all the way to London, or would I need to get it and recheck?
Would I be going through customs in Canada even though I am just flying out again?
and finally is 2 hours enough?
The flight combination is listed on Aircanada.com however I would book from a ticket consolidator if that makes a difference should I miss a flight.

I've done this recently.

First, the procedure on Air Canada, assuming it's all on one ticket with one carrier.

No-one, at AC check-in or on the plane, knows what's going to happen to your bags. You arrive at YYZ and go through Canadian immigration (which on previous experiences had been a surprisingly drawn-out procedure, with the immigration agent expressing surprise and slight suspicion that anyone would claim to be entering Canada for 60 minutes).

You then go to baggage reclaim where everyone looks amazed that you don't realise your baggage has been automatically sent through to the next flight, just like in civilised countries. You're nodded through Customs and walk along what everyone in Canada tells you is an endless corridor, beginning to realise why - if they think that's long - so many North Americans are so obese.

You wait about ten minutes for a bus, listening to Canadians whingeing about the delay as enthusiastically as if they were Pom migrants.

The bus arrives, and takes you on what feels like a tour of the Great Lakes. About 10 minutes later you're decamped into another terminal, where a short walk takes you to the London gate. You buy a couple of books for the plane, then get a heart attack at how much Canadians pay for books.

45 minutes from wheels down to the heart attack. Canadians all tell you it can be worse. With other airline combos it might be.

TTT

rms, if your routing is Seattle-Toronto, Toronto-London on Air Canada, it should be enough time if your flight from SEA is on time.

Here's what happens: when you check in at SEA, you will be given boarding passes for both segments of your journey. Your bags will be also be tagged to London, but you will have to pick up your bags and re-check them in Toronto.

The details: your flight from SEA will arrive at Toronto Terminal 2 and you do, unfortunately, have to "enter" Canada, even though you are connecting to London. After clearing customs and immigration at terminal 2, you will pick up your luggage at the conveyor belt and re-check it at the connections desk just after the customs hall. You then take a shuttle to Terminal 1, where you proceed through security to the gate for your London flight. (There used to be another time-consuming wrinkle at this point, when AC's international flights left from a building in the middle of the infield, but that rarely happens these days.)

If you miss the flight, I think AC will deal with you the same way they would with any other ticketed passenger: re-book you on the next available flight.

You can find information on the inter-terminal shuttles at the Toronto airport website: www.gtaa.com

Anselm

thank you everyone for your quick replies.
Just to sum it up, it's possible and without a delay on the Seattle to Toronto flight I would be on my way to London with few worries?
ps. I did get a chuckle about the cost of books. Even when the exchange rate was favorable the cost of books always got to me.

Either:

Anselm and I were travelling on different airlines both calling themselves Air Canada, or
Air Canada changes its policy on through-checking bags according to the phases of the moon.

I'm inclined to the second explanation. When last I did it (September), no two Air Canada staff members outside YYZ could agree on this. But EVERYONE at YYZ looked equally puzzled there could be any confusion. "Of course it's gone straight through" they all said. "Isn't that what you do in London?"

In reverse of course (LHR-YYZ-SEA) it's a great deal more complicated. There you probably do need two hours.

Hello rms882: I live in Seattle and am interested in your "affordable flight" info. When are you going? All of us here on the forums spend time daily checking flight info because of the costs. If you have a decent fare into London, please give info so I can jump on the bandwagon. Thank you greatly!

no problem, I definately wasn't meaning to withhold.
I plan to fly out on June 9th and return August 7th.
I found a $729 sea-lon r/t on airlineconsolidators.com
I had to rush off to class and was still debating, so it has probably vanished while I did that...
when are you planning to go?
good luck!

rms, I just flew Air Canada for the first time in November. Once we checked our luggage at BWI we did not see it until Rome. Be aware of how much your carry on weighs as they were very strict about their weight requirements. One of our carry on pieces had to be checked because of its weight.

Now returning through Toronto is another story entirely. We did have to pick up our luggage after we went through passport control; then take it to customs and immigrations and then on to check in for our flight. The day we were there custom and immigrations had such a log jam travelers were screaming (really screaming) about missing their planes. It was not a pretty picture.

I have to believe our experience was the exception and most people don't see such disorgainization when they go through customs in Toronto

Make sure you have all your boarding passes printed out when you check in. For some reason they couldn't do ours in Rome for the TOR to BWI leg. They wouldn't let us pick up our luggage at passport control without a boarding pass even using our e-ticket info so that meant another long line for us somewhere far away from passport control. Hopefully, that doesn't happen too often either. Deborah

Thank you again everyone,
I just booked my ticket.
$739 for the Seattle to London portion
(6/9/06 depart - 8/2/06 return)
On my return flight I fly through Vancouver instead. I have used that airport before to fly to Hawaii, and I have a longer layover there so it should be a little bit less stressful.
I am happy I just finally booked my flight and I am pretty happy about the total cost.
All said and done I am flying Seattle to Athens June 9th, Venice to London July 9th, London to Paris for a 3 day weekend in July, and finally London back to Seattle Aug. 2nd for and grand total -
...drumroll please....
$987.09

CotswoldScouser, things could indeed have changed. Let me do some more research and I'll post what I find out.

Anselm

YVR on an LHR-YVR-SEA flight was as close to blissful as anywhere in Canada could be given the extraordinary complications these flights involve.

The infinite number of bureaucratic processes all happen inside what's more or less the same terminal, and the few hundred yards' walking were pretty much what you needed to get the circulation back after 10 hours of AC's indifferent service. No frustration waiting for dilatory buses - and my fellow travellers went through these processes with general good humour and patience.

After finally going through them all, you're in a conventional terminal with a reasonable number of bars and more maple syrup shops than you'd have thought the entire planet would need. A far cry from the airless, loo-less rabbit hutches I remember being detained in at Toronto after going through US immigration. Or the Stalag Luft 10 conditions at LAX airside if you're mad enough to make an international connection there.

OK, here it is from the horse's mouth (an AC employee who posts on FlyerTalk). The procedure has indeed changed:

"USA to International

If you are making a UA-to-AC or AC-to-AC US/Intl connection at YYZ, you do not need to claim your bag at Canada Customs at T2. Your bag will be connected to your T1 flight "behind-the-scenes". You will not see your bag in Toronto. The T2 Customs agents have this drill pretty much down pat and will not question you on it.

If connecting to any other airline than AC for your international flight, you will be required to pick up your bag before clearing Customs and re-check it."

So there you have it. You'll arrive at Terminal 2, clear customs and immigration, take the shuttle to Terminal 1, clear security, and walk to your gate for London.

Sorry for being out of date.

Anselm

We flew from Denver to Munich via Toronto on Air Canada a few years ago and experienced the following -

1) We did not claim and recheck our bags on the outbound flight, although we did have to go through security even though we were only changing gates. This seemed to reflect poor airport design.

2) Upon our return, we went through US Customs and Immigration in Toronto. When we arrived in Denver, it was as if we had been on a domestic flight.

3) The concourses at Pearson (in Toronto) were huge. It wasn't an issue outbound because our gates were close together. On the return, however, it seemed that we must have walked over a mile - and we had to go through security twice. A tight connection, combined with distant gates, could easily mean a missed flight.

Security checks when doing an international transit is pretty common. It's not due to poor design of Pearson. It's like that in Tokyo, LHR, etc... And at some airports, you go through security right at the gate, just before boarding, like Singapore, Amsterdam. So, you usually cannot avoid a security check during an international transit.

Thank you Anselm for checking into this to see what it is currently like.
Everyone else, thanks a lot for your advice and examples of personal experience manuevering the airport in Toronto.

Two hours is highly risky. There is a new terminal, so you may well have to switch from Terminal 2 to the new Terminal 1.

Personally, I wouldn't even consider flying Air Canada.

So, imhornet, if you don't fly Air Canada, on what do you base your judgement that a 2 hour transfer is "highly risky"?

Imhorney - any elaboration? I was quite clear about the terminal change already.
As for the flight - I'm not that picky, just needed a good deal (I'm a student). As long as I somehow arrive in Athens by Sunday afternoon 6/11 I am fine.

Assuming that you are flying non-stop between SEA and YYZ three options come up for the LHR flight. These give you 90, 150 or 220 minutes to make your conection. The middle one (2.5 hours) looks reasonable to me. If you miss that one there is another flight in 65 minutes. There is also the option of going through YVR. At YYZ I believe that there is an airside transfer between T1 (non US international & domestic) and T2 (US).