Toronto Pearson Airport ready to welcome international football crowd for World Cup

The airport expects 17 million people to walk through its doors and gates between tourney time and Labour Day weekend

Published Jun 04, 2026  •  Last updated 4 minutes ago  •  3 minute read

One of the many displays at Toronto Pearson terminal one, as the airport expects increased international arrivals with the World Cup kicking on June 12 with Canada playing Bosnia Herzegovina. Photo by Gordon Anderson/Toronto Sun

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The squad at the Toronto Pearson airport may be more prepared for the World Cup than the players and teams that are expected to arrive in the coming days.

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“We are ready,” Toronto Person spokesman Sean Davidson told the Toronto Sun on Thursday morning at the Terminal 1 international arrivals gate. “It is a year of preparations that have been underway. We are expecting things to go very smoothly. The airport is going to be very busy, but we are ready for it.”

And just like any team, there is a heartbeat, a blast furnace for the entire outfit.

Rapid response team

Located in a non-descript room in Terminal 3, the Games Operation Centre is where the shots get called. Think of it as a rapid response team.

“This games operation control centre will go during the period of the tournament and in that room, they can monitor cameras in the airport, see things that are happening,” Davidson said. “It will be critical to adjust in real time and that is what we want at the airport.”

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The games centre was added specifically to deal with all the unlimited possibilities that could occur when, on busy days, 185,000 people are traipsing through the airport every day during the Toronto portion of the event.

“This is a feature we are adding so we can be in contact instantly to the City of Toronto, (in case) we need to get in contact with the TTC or Metrolinx, any of those partners,“ Davidson explained. “People will be in the room ready to respond straight away.”

Because the team will be reacting to situations as they occur, they must respond as quickly as a situation comes up.

“We really want to be able to react quickly,” Davidson said. “We always can react quickly, but it is just putting these extra measures in place because the eyes of the world are going to be (focused) on Toronto, and we are the front door to that. We want to make sure the preparations we have done over the last year make this seamless travel for the people that are coming.”

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In real time

Since the city got the nod as a host for the three-county extravaganza, officials at the airport have had plenty of time to think about what could potentially happen.

Good, bad or indifferent, they need to be paying attention.

“And that is what the preparations that go on behind the scenes, running through all the scenarios and situations we can think of,” Davidson said. “Because, if they come up in real time, we have experience practicing them and we know exactly what to do.”

And how many scenarios have response teams throughout both terminals been exposed to in this yearlong runway?

“Dozens,” Davidson said.

One example Davidson mentioned was shunting additional workers quickly to areas of the airport in response to a sudden or unexpected influx of people or some random emergency, the severity of it notwithstanding.

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A ‘big moment’ for the city

The first game of the World Cup in Toronto is June 12, when Canada plays Bosnia Herzegovina. The last scheduled game is a July 2 round of 32 matchup with the runners-up from Groups K and L.

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Potentially, 11 teams could play at least one game in Toronto. At the very least, the city expects international passengers from Germany, Senegal, Panama, Croatia, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana and Iraq.

And while it is an exercise in futility for airport officials to estimate how many people will be in town to watch one or more of the six games, the airport expects 17 million people to walk through its doors and gates between tourney time and Labour Day weekend.

“There has been about a year of preparations underway to be ready for this moment,” Davidson said. “It is a big moment for the city and as the airport we are the front door to the city.”

”We are also the last impression people have when they leave, as well. So, we want to make sure that operations are ready,” he added.

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