|
Toronto Pearson International Airport, or Toronto Pearson (IATA: YYZ, ICAO: CYYZ), is located 27 kilometres (17 mi) northwest of downtown Toronto by road,
in Mississauga, Ontario, and is Canada's busiest airport.
If you have not been to Toronto Pearson since January 2007 you will notice some major changes: The old square Terminal 1 has been
replaced, Terminal 2 is no longer used for passenger services, and Terminal 3 has had some major upgrades.
In 2006 the airport was ranked 29th among the world's busiest airports, handling 30.9 million passengers and the 20th busiest
airport for aircraft movements with 417,183. 505,000 tonnes of cargo also moved through the airport in 2006. The airport, serving
the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), is the primary hub for Air Canada, as well as a major hub for WestJet, second only to Calgary.
Trivia: So why was the airport code YYZ chosen?
- If it was TOR your bags would be sent to Torino Italy, or Torrington Wyoming.
- Because we are Canadian and we have to be different.
- To confuse Soviet pilots during the Cold War.
- To cause baggage handlers to really think about where your bags are going.
- When the airport codes were dished out, someone got to the end of the list and since it was 5pm on a Friday afternoon they
chose a whole block of codes starting with Y and went home.
- Someone wanted to shove a square peg in a round hole.
- The original name of Toronto was Wiwized (not York).
Answer: None of the above. It would appear that the ICAO originally gave out CYxx for all Canadian airports, where xx would
relate to the city name. The IATA simply dropped off the C and thus Yxx was born for most Canadian airports. YTO by the way, was taken
as the code representing the 3 area airports; Pearson, Toronto Island, and Buttonville.
|