Toronto Pearson (YYZ) has nonstop flights to around 45 US airports over the next twelve months, more than any other airport in Canada, and to around 30 Canadian ones, including every other provincial capital in every month. No US airport in Midway’s data reaches more than ten Canadian airports. So for a group split between the two countries, Toronto is usually the city where people on both sides have a nonstop.
That makes it a natural middle for a group trip from different cities, a family reunion or a company offsite with people in both countries. Someone crosses the border whichever city the group picks, and in Toronto it is the Americans. For a group that sits mostly in western Canada and the US West, Toronto is a long way east, and Vancouver or Seattle is usually closer for everyone.
The numbers behind Toronto’s airports
Toronto’s two airports have nonstop flights to around 205 destinations over the next twelve months. Figures are from Midway’s route data as of October 2026, with Pearson and Billy Bishop (YTZ) counted together, as Midway does for the metro code YTO, and rounded to the nearest 5. Pearson accounts for all but one of them. Billy Bishop’s only addition is Chicago Midway, listed for October 2026 alone.
Six of Pearson’s entries are towns in Ontario between about 40 and 155 miles away, such as Hamilton, Kitchener-Waterloo and Kingston. Their schedule times work out at 30 to 55 mph, which looks like coach connections sold under Air Canada flight numbers rather than flights. Midway still lists them, but the counts below for Canada leave them out.
Without them, Pearson’s list splits into 45 airports in the US, 32 in Canada and around 120 elsewhere. The rest of the Americas takes a large share, with around 25 destinations in the Caribbean and 12 in Mexico, and Europe has around 40.
Routes to the US
Pearson’s 45 US airports cover the main hubs of every large US airline: Atlanta, Chicago O’Hare, Dallas-Fort Worth, Denver, Houston, Charlotte, all three New York airports, and Reagan National and Dulles in Washington. On the West Coast it reaches Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Seattle and Las Vegas. Of the US airports in Midway’s data, the three with the most destinations that have no nonstop from either Toronto airport are Baltimore, Portland and Dallas Love Field.
Montreal (YUL) is the next Canadian airport by US reach, at 34. Vancouver and Calgary list more Canadian airports than Pearson does, but each reaches fewer US airports than Montreal.
Air Canada flies 44 of the 45, all but JFK, which is Delta’s. The US airlines fly mainly to their own hubs: Delta to Atlanta, Detroit, Minneapolis and Salt Lake City, United to Denver, Houston, Newark, Dulles, O’Hare and San Francisco, American to Charlotte, Dallas-Fort Worth, Miami, Philadelphia and Reagan National. Porter flies to 13 US airports from Pearson, mostly in Florida and the West, and WestJet to Nashville and four Florida airports.
So a US member loyal to one airline will usually find a nonstop from its hub, and from most other large US cities on Air Canada. Ten of the 45 do not run all year, and the season section below lists them.
Routes inside Canada
Pearson flies to 32 Canadian airports. They include all nine other provincial capitals, Victoria, Edmonton, Regina, Winnipeg, Québec City, Fredericton, Halifax, Charlottetown and St. John’s, plus Ottawa, and each runs in every month of the schedules. No other airport in Midway’s data has a year-round nonstop to all of them. Ottawa has no Regina flight, and Montreal’s flights to Victoria and Regina skip some months.
More than half of Pearson’s Canadian destinations have no nonstop to any US airport in Midway’s data. Charlottetown, Fredericton, Moncton, Saint John and Sydney in the Maritimes, Deer Lake and Gander in Newfoundland, Thunder Bay and Sudbury in northern Ontario, and Fort McMurray and Yellowknife in the north-west are all on that list. For a family reunion with someone in Moncton or Thunder Bay, a US hub means a connection for them, and Toronto usually does not.
The US airports with the most Canadian destinations are Orlando, with ten, then Chicago O’Hare, Denver, Fort Lauderdale and Phoenix with nine each. Their lists are mostly the larger Canadian cities, such as Calgary, Montreal, Winnipeg and Toronto itself. Up north, Yellowknife runs nine months of the year from Pearson, on Air North, and Whitehorse only in July and August.
See which cities your group can reach from Toronto. Enter everyone’s departure airports and Midway lists the cities all of them reach nonstop. It shows flights, not the border documents each person needs.
Billy Bishop and the downtown option
Billy Bishop (YTZ) is on the Toronto Islands, a pedestrian tunnel away from the waterfront at the foot of Bathurst Street. It has nonstops to 17 airports, ten in Canada and seven in the US: Boston, Newark, LaGuardia, Washington Dulles, Chicago O’Hare, Nashville and the October-only Chicago Midway. Porter flies every route except LaGuardia, which is Air Canada’s, and Air Canada also flies five of Porter’s, among them Ottawa, Montreal and Boston.
To five of its six year-round US airports, Billy Bishop’s shortest scheduled time is 10 to 20 minutes below Pearson’s. LaGuardia is 1h20 from Billy Bishop against 1h39 from Pearson, and Nashville is the exception, at 2h20 against 2h03. Some Canadian routes run only part of the year, Fredericton and Moncton for nine months and Halifax only in December and January.
For a group staying downtown, Billy Bishop can save the ride in from Pearson, and people flying from Ottawa, Montreal, Boston, New York or Washington can land there instead. A search for YTO in Midway covers both airports, so the results include Billy Bishop’s routes without a separate search.
Crossing the border
US Customs and Border Protection runs preclearance at Pearson, in Terminals 1 and 3, and at Billy Bishop. Travelers flying to the US go through US immigration and customs in Toronto before boarding, then land in the US as a domestic arrival, with no border queue at the other end. Calgary, Edmonton, Halifax, Montreal, Ottawa, Vancouver, Victoria and Winnipeg have preclearance too, so most Canadians flying to a US meeting city also clear the border before they leave.
Flights from the US to Toronto land as international arrivals and go through Canadian border control at the airport. Either way, everyone in the group needs documents accepted for the crossing. Midway shows routes and flight times, and it does not check entry requirements.
A worked example
Take a group flying from Calgary, Ottawa, Dallas-Fort Worth and Miami, two in Canada and two in the US. They share 16 destinations in Midway’s data, from Toronto, Washington Dulles and Chicago O’Hare to Cancún, London and Paris. Counted as total time in the air, Toronto is the shortest at about 11h15 across the four flights, against about 11h25 for Dulles and about 11h45 for O’Hare.
Dulles works only from May to September, the months WestJet flies there from Calgary. Toronto has all four routes in every month, and Air Canada flies all four. O’Hare also runs all year and has the shorter longest leg, 3h33 from Calgary against 3h46 to Toronto. So it comes down to who crosses the border: Toronto puts the two Americans through Canadian border control, and O’Hare puts the two Canadians through preclearance at home.
See also the Toronto direct flights page, which lists every destination reachable nonstop from Toronto and the other cities that share it.
Flight times from Pearson
Shortest scheduled time from YYZ in Midway’s data:
| To | Flight time |
|---|---|
| Ottawa (YOW) | 1h 05m |
| Detroit (DTW) | 1h 16m |
| Montreal (YUL) | 1h 20m |
| Washington (DCA) | 1h 38m |
| New York (LGA) | 1h 39m |
| Boston (BOS) | 1h 40m |
| Halifax (YHZ) | 2h 09m |
| Chicago (ORD) | 2h 10m |
| Atlanta (ATL) | 2h 15m |
| Winnipeg (YWG) | 2h 37m |
| St. John’s (YYT) | 3h 05m |
| Miami (MIA) | 3h 23m |
| Dallas (DFW) | 3h 25m |
| Denver (DEN) | 3h 37m |
| Calgary (YYC) | 4h 13m |
| Mexico City (MEX) | 4h 40m |
| Vancouver (YVR) | 4h 50m |
| Los Angeles (LAX) | 5h 18m |
| San Francisco (SFO) | 5h 29m |
| London (LHR) | 7h 00m |
| Tokyo (HND) | 13h 20m |
Times are the shortest monthly schedule over the next twelve months. Flights toward Toronto take a different time, mostly because of prevailing winds.
Routes beyond North America
Most of Pearson’s list outside the US and Canada is a holiday map: around 25 Caribbean destinations, 12 in Mexico and 8 in Central America, many of them on Air Transat, WestJet, Porter or Flair as well as Air Canada. South America has 8, from Bogotá and Lima to São Paulo and Santiago.
Across the Atlantic, Pearson reaches around 40 European cities, about half of them all year, plus Cairo, Casablanca and Addis Ababa. Further east it has Dubai, Doha, Abu Dhabi, Tel Aviv and Jeddah, and 15 cities in Asia, among them Tokyo Narita and Haneda, Seoul, Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Delhi, Karachi, Lahore and Manila. So a group that also includes someone in Europe or South Asia can often keep Toronto on the list, and the US–Europe meeting destinations guide covers the alternatives on the other side.
Routes that change with the season
About one in three of Pearson’s destinations do not run in every month of the next twelve. What changes over the year is mostly where they go, more than how many run.
Winter brings the sun routes. Palm Springs, Sarasota and West Palm Beach run from October to April, Honolulu from December to April, and Bonaire, Guadeloupe, Martinique and Mexican Pacific resorts such as Mazatlán, Huatulco and Puerto Escondido for part of the same window. Summer brings Europe, with Nice, Oslo, Stockholm, Shannon, Zagreb and Belgrade, plus Charleston from April to September and Jacksonville and Sacramento from May to September.
So for a group date several months out, check the month before assuming a route exists. Midway’s month filter shows the destinations that run in the month you pick, and it cannot tell you whether an airline will add or drop a route after the schedules it has.
Planning a group meeting in Toronto
Getting around. The UP Express train runs from Pearson’s Terminal 1 to Union Station downtown, so most of a group can reach a central hotel without a car. Billy Bishop is a walk or a short ride from the downtown core. VIA Rail trains from Union Station reach Ottawa and Montreal, which lets part of an Ontario and Québec group come without flying.
Seasons. Toronto winters are cold, with regular snow from December to March, and winter is also when the sun routes leave Pearson. Summers are warm and have the most European routes. The Toronto International Film Festival in early September usually fills downtown hotels while it runs.
Budget. Prices in Toronto are in Canadian dollars. Hotels downtown cost the most in summer and in festival weeks, and staying near a UP Express or subway station outside the core usually costs less while keeping the airport one train away.
Who meets in Toronto
Groups split between the US and Canada. The strongest case. Pearson reaches around 45 US airports and every other provincial capital, and more than half of its Canadian cities have no nonstop to the US at all. The Americans cross the border on arrival, and their flight home clears US immigration in Toronto.
Groups in Ontario, Québec and the US Northeast or Midwest. Ottawa, Montreal, Detroit, New York, Boston and Washington are all under two hours from Pearson, and Billy Bishop covers several of them from downtown.
Groups with family in Atlantic Canada or the Prairies. Halifax, Charlottetown, St. John’s, Regina and Saskatoon all have year-round nonstops to Pearson. Regina and Saskatoon reach two or three US airports nonstop, St. John’s one, Tampa, and Charlottetown none, so a US hub usually means a connection for them.
Groups mostly in the West. Vancouver, Calgary, Los Angeles and San Francisco are 4 to 5h30 from Pearson. For a group spread from British Columbia to California, Vancouver or Seattle is probably the fairer middle, and for a group spread across the whole US, a central city such as Chicago or Denver is probably fairer than Toronto.
Toronto’s case rests on the border, on Pearson’s US list and its Canadian one together. It does not settle which side of the border the group prefers to spend the weekend on, and that is usually decided by passports and prices, not routes.