One giant, one tiny, both busy

Toronto's Airports

Canada's busiest airport, and — a fraction of its size but a straight shot to the downtown core — the small island airport most first-time visitors don't know exists.

Terminal 1 at Toronto Pearson International Airport — Toronto Pearson Airport, Terminal 1 — Wikimedia Commons, Creative Commons licensed

Toronto runs two airports with almost nothing in common except the city they serve — one a sprawling international hub, the other a small island strip a ferry ride from downtown.

Toronto Pearson International Airport (YYZ)

Canada's largest and busiest airport by a wide margin, serving more than 35 million passengers a year and ranking among the busiest in the world. It traces back to 1937, when the Toronto Harbour Commission built Malton Airport northwest of the city as a secondary airfield to the existing downtown airport — Malton ended up eclipsing it entirely and was later renamed for Lester B. Pearson, Canada's 14th prime minister and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate.

Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport (YTZ)

A much smaller airport on the Toronto Islands, established in 1939 and named for World War I flying ace William Avery Bishop, a Victoria Cross recipient. It handles close to 2.8 million passengers a year on short-haul and regional routes, with the appeal being pure convenience — a pedestrian tunnel connects it directly to the mainland, putting it a 10-minute ride from the Financial District, versus 30–45 minutes from Pearson.

Two very different flight experiences

Pearson is the default for almost all international and long-haul travel and has direct connections to destinations worldwide; Billy Bishop is largely a domestic and short-haul U.S. option, historically dominated by Porter Airlines, which built its entire brand around the small island airport's downtown convenience.

Sources

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