Billy Bishop or Pearson: choosing your Toronto airport

When a route is served from both, the choice between Billy Bishop and Toronto Pearson is usually made on airfare and schedule, and then the ground half of the day quietly undoes the saving. The two airports are about as different as two airports in one city can be: one sits on an island a few hundred metres from the base of Bathurst Street, the other on a vast airfield in the northwest corner of Mississauga. What follows is the comparison as a chauffeur sees it.

The fares, side by side

Those are priced by the same engine that quotes the booking form, in the least expensive car of each class, with tolls, airport fees, parking and the included wait time already inside them and HST shown separately. Read them as a starting point rather than as the whole decision, because the interesting differences between these two airports are measured in minutes and in walking.

Billy Bishop: the mainland pavilion, the tunnel and the ferry

Billy Bishop is on the Toronto Islands, and no private vehicle crosses to it. Every pickup and set-down happens on the mainland at Eireann Quay, at the foot of Bathurst Street, where cars are permitted to stand. You reach the terminal on foot: either through the pedestrian tunnel under the Western Channel, which has lifts and moving walkways at both ends and runs whenever the airport does, or on the ferry, which crosses in about ninety seconds.

That crossing is the thing travellers forget to budget for, and it is small — a short walk plus a few minutes. Your chauffeur waits in the pavilion driveway, or stands at the top of the tunnel escalator with a name card if you would rather be met before you are out in the weather. From there Bay Street is about ten minutes. For a morning meeting in the Financial District, no other airport in Ontario comes close.

At Billy Bishop the aircraft is close to the city and slightly further from the kerb. At Pearson it is the other way round.

Pearson: two terminals and a drive that varies

Pearson is roughly 22 kilometres from the Financial District. On a clear Sunday morning that run is about 25 minutes. On a Thursday at 17:00, with the 401 westbound backed up past Dixie, the same trip is closer to an hour. Dispatch builds the realistic number into your pickup rather than the optimistic one, and because the fare is fixed before you travel, sitting on the 427 costs you nothing extra.

Against that variability you get scale: two terminals, long-haul and transatlantic service, alliances that will rebook you when something breaks, and arrivals around the clock. If you are connecting internationally, carrying a party and a pile of cases, or flying at an hour when the island airport has closed for the night, Pearson is not a compromise. It is the right airport. Just read the terminal carefully — Terminal 1 and Terminal 3 are at opposite ends of the airfield.

Two airports, two different kinds of risk

The risk at Billy Bishop is procedural and small: you have to be on the mainland side in time, and the crossing has to be counted rather than assumed. The risk at Pearson is the road, and it is larger but better understood. A downtown pickup for an island departure is exposed to two sets of lights and a level crossing; the same pickup for Pearson is exposed to the Gardiner, the 427 and the 401, in a combination that changes hour by hour. Neither is a reason to choose one over the other, but they are different problems, and the pickup time should be built for whichever one you have taken on.

Choosing by the day, not by the airport

• A single meeting downtown and a same-day return: Billy Bishop, almost always. The ground time is the shortest in the region.
• A transatlantic arrival with checked luggage: Pearson, met inside arrivals with the cases handled for you.
• A delegation of eight arriving together: Pearson, because the party fits one vehicle and the terminal handles the volume.
• An early start from Toronto with a hard cut-off: whichever airport, but book the pickup against the cut-off rather than the departure time.
• Mobility, heavy cases or a traveller who would rather not walk: Pearson, or Billy Bishop with the chauffeur walking through the tunnel to carry them.

Departures from each

For Billy Bishop we time the pickup backwards from your check-in cut-off with the crossing counted in, which is the step most travellers leave out of their own arithmetic. For Pearson we plan to have you at the terminal three hours before an international departure and two before a domestic one, then add for the hour of day and the weather. Both are ordinary airport transfers at a fixed fare; only the arithmetic behind the pickup time differs.

Which car for which airport

The island airport is a short run with light luggage, and an executive sedan such as the BMW 7 Series or the Mercedes-Benz S-Class is the sensible car: three passengers, three cases, a quiet cabin for the ten minutes you have. Pearson arrivals are longer, heavier and more often a group, which is why the Cadillac Escalade ESV does most of our work there. The stretch limousine serves neither airport; it is an event vehicle rather than an airport one.

The rule of thumb

If the whole trip lives downtown and fits in a day, fly the island and enjoy the ten minutes. If the trip is long-haul, heavy, early, late or shared with colleagues, fly Pearson and let the fixed fare absorb the 401. And if you are genuinely torn, tell dispatch what the day looks like rather than which flight you were thinking of; the ground half is the part we can actually price for you, and we will say plainly when the cheaper flight is the more expensive morning.