YYZ pickup guide

When should I leave to pick someone up at Toronto Pearson?

If you've ever left for Pearson with no real idea whether you'll be stuck waiting in the cell-phone lot for half an hour or pulling up to find them already at the curb — this one's for you.

You check the flight the night before. You check it again over coffee — still on time? You leave the house, and somewhere on the 427 it hits you: you have no idea if it actually landed, or landed early, or is still circling over the lake. So you do what everyone does at this point. You guess.

And the thing is, it's never one guess.

The math you're doing in your head

Getting from "wheels down" to "standing at the curb" is a stack of separate unknowns, each one piled on the last:

Is the flight on time?Delayed, early, or circling — changes by the minuteanyone's guess
Taxiing from the runway to the gateLonger than people expect at a big airport~7–11 min
Deplaning and the walk to the hallBack of the plane, far gate — it adds up~10–15 min
Customs & immigrationInternational only — and very different at 10am vs 6pm~15–45 min
Waiting for checked bagsBags start well after the gate, and trickle out~15–30 min
Your own drive to the airportDepends where you're coming from, and trafficyour guess

Add it all up and you're left with a window, not a time — so you either leave too early and circle, or cut it close and leave them waiting at the curb.

Here's the part you can't guess around

And averages don't save you, because your flight isn't the average. It taxis longer, customs is slammed, or the bags come out fast. The only way to know is to watch your flight as it happens.

So we built the thing that does the math for you.

Text one flight number to CurbSync. We do all of that math for you — then track the flight and keep you posted as it changes: delays, early arrivals, gate changes, bags. No more running the numbers in your head every time you refresh the arrivals page. That part's free.

Want it narrowed to a single curb time, plus a text telling you exactly when to leave home? That's the paid upgrade — but the free tracking alone gets you off the guesswork.

Text your flight number

Free to start. No app, no account — just WhatsApp.

Ballpark figures — a blend of general airport norms and CurbSync's own tracking of more than 70,000 Pearson arrivals over the past six months. Your flight may land nowhere near the typical, which is why we track yours live.