Toronto Pearson Intl

Trans-Canada Air Lines was expected to begin operations in 1937, and the Government of Canada wanted to build an airport to serve Toronto. One site selected was on the Toronto Islands, which is the present-day Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport. The other was NW of Toronto which was CYYZ.

The first scheduled passenger flight to Malton Airport was a Trans-Canada Air Lines DC-3 that landed on August 29, 1939. During World War II, the Royal Canadian Air Force established a base at the airport as a component of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan. RCAF Station Malton was home to several training schools and was in operation between 1940 and 1946.

Preclearance was pioneered at Pearson in 1952 as a convenience to allow it to connect as a domestic airport to the many smaller airports in the United States that at the time lacked customs and immigration facilities.

Considered state-of-the-art in the 1960s, the original Terminal 1 became overloaded by the early 1970s. Terminal 2 opened as a passenger airline terminal on June 15, 1972.In 1996, the Government of Canada outsourced airport operations in Canada to local authorities which would manage the airports on a self-sufficiency basis.

In 2015, the new Union Pearson Express (or "UP Express"), Toronto Pearson's first airport rail link, was officially opened connecting the airport to Union Station in Downtown Toronto.