While most Mississauga residents and others who live across the Greater Toronto Area settled in on Friday night to relax at home after a week of work, 50,000 or so people were hustling and bustling at Canada’s biggest and busiest airport.

That’s the estimate from officials at Toronto Pearson Airport in Mississauga, which is in the midst of its typically busy summer season.

“This evening will be a busy one, with over 50,000 people arriving and departing through the airport — that’s about 12,500 people every hour between 6 p.m. and 10 p.m.,” Pearson said in a post to social media on Friday afternoon in advance of what airport officials anticipated would be a busy summer evening.

To put that number of Friday night travellers at Pearson another way, roughly the population of North Bay, Ontario (more than 52,000) or Cornwall, Ontario (some 47,000) made their way on and off numerous outbound and inbound flights in just a few hours.

The airport’s post to X (formerly Twitter) also served as a reminder to travellers — especially during busier times of the year — to make sure they arrive at Pearson at least three hours in advance for international flights and two hours prior to the departure of flights within Canada.

“This will give you enough time to go through security and find your gate,” Pearson officials said. “During busy evenings, we can see up to 400 vehicles per hour at the arrivals level in Terminal 3. If you’re picking up passengers, use our free cellphone waiting area to avoid curbside congestion, or pick them up at Viscount Station.”

Those in search of flight information can also visit Pearson’s live online wait time dashboard for information.

During the high-volume summer season, 11.2 million passengers are expected to travel through Toronto Pearson in July and August.

That number is an increase of around 400,000 from the 10.8 million people who used Pearson last summer, airport officials said earlier.

During July and August, around 160,000 passengers per day (more than the population of Barrie, Ontario) on roughly 1,100 daily flights make their way through the country’s largest airport, according to numbers released earlier by Pearson.

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