A new U.S. border preclearance facility is opening at Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport, allowing passengers to clear customs before takeoff for\u00a0faster, hassle-free arrivals in the U.S.\u00a0<\/p>\n
At a press conference on Monday morning, Canada’s Minister of Transport, Steven MacKinnon, announced<\/a> that the checkpoint for U.S.-bound travellers will officially open on March 10, 2026.<\/p>\n The opening of this new upgrade at\u00a0the Island Airport\u00a0marks Canada’s first new U.S. Customs and Border Protection preclearance facility in 25 years.\u00a0<\/p>\n The project, made possible by a $30 million capital investment from the Government of Canada, has been a long time coming. The border checkpoint was first announced in 2023 with the release of construction photos and was originally “on track”\u00a0to open in 2025<\/a>. But, like many\u00a0projects of this calibre in Toronto, timelines shifted.<\/p>\n MacKinnon says the new preclearance facility “will make cross-border travel easier for passengers while enhancing border security and improving efficiency,”\u00a0and could also boost jobs at the airport as the number of routes increases.<\/p>\n Roelof-Jan Steenstra, president and CEO of Port Authority Toronto, says the move “unlocks new direct access to U.S. destinations,”\u00a0introduces modern border technologies to improve security and efficiency, and “significantly increases the economic impact” of the airport for Toronto and the surrounding area.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the new preclearance facility may not be the only major change coming to Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport. Ontario Premier Doug Ford has also been pushing to extend the airport’s runway \u2013 named one of the “most beautiful”\u00a0in the world<\/a>\u00a0to land on \u2013 and allow larger planes to operate at the downtown airport.<\/p>\n MacKinnon\u00a0told CTV<\/a>\u00a0in a recent interview that the goal of these proposed upgrades is to reduce congestion, increase flight travel options for Ontario travellers and “support more routes to underserved parts of the province.”\u00a0<\/p>\n Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport, which is regularly\u00a0ranked among\u00a0the best airports in the world<\/a>, handles about 2.8 million passengers each year<\/a>, which works out to almost an average of 7,700 travellers per day.<\/p>\n If approved, these upgrades could significantly expand flight options from the downtown airport while also easing pressure on larger hubs like Toronto Pearson International Airport.\u00a0<\/p>\n Lead photo by <\/p>\n Adam McCullough \/ Shutterstock.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new U.S. border preclearance facility is opening at Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport, allowing passengers to clear…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":524849,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194291],"tags":[22365,73488,194912,49,48,3302],"class_list":{"0":"post-524848","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-toronto","8":"tag-airport","9":"tag-billy","10":"tag-bishop","11":"tag-ca","12":"tag-canada","13":"tag-toronto"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=524848"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524848\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/524849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=524848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=524848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=524848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}