Billy Bishop airport limo guide: tunnel, ferry and the Eireann Quay pickup

The island airport, from the mainland

Billy Bishop is the airport most visitors to Toronto discover on their second trip. Its aircraft — Porter's Dash 8 Q400 turboprops and Air Canada Express's — fly from Ottawa, Montreal, Halifax, Thunder Bay, Sudbury, Timmins, Windsor, Quebec City, Moncton, St. John's, Boston, Chicago, Newark, Washington and a dozen other cities, and they land two kilometres from Bay Street. The airport handles around two million passengers a year through a single terminal, a customs hall for US arrivals, and a shoreline that puts Lake Ontario on one side and the CN Tower on the other. What it does not have is a road to the mainland, and that shapes everything about a black car pickup here. This article covers the tunnel and the ferry, the Eireann Quay pickup, the timing from downtown and the GTA, the airlines, the taxi and shuttle alternatives, and the situations where Billy Bishop beats Pearson — and where it does not.

The tunnel: six minutes under the channel

The pedestrian tunnel opened in 2015 and runs under the Western Gap — the channel between the island and the mainland — from the terminal to the mainland pavilion at the foot of Bathurst Street. It is about 250 metres long, with a bank of elevators at each end (the island side descends about 30 metres) and moving walkways in between; the walk from the terminal's arrivals hall to the mainland pavilion takes about six minutes at an unhurried pace with a rolling bag, and the tunnel is open whenever the airport is. It is the default route for almost every passenger, and it is the reason the ferry is now mostly used by staff, by passengers who prefer the view, and on the rare occasions the tunnel's elevators are out of service. The tunnel is fully accessible; the elevators take wheelchairs and strollers.

The ferry: 90 seconds across, on a cycle

The ferry — the Marilyn Bell I — crosses the Western Gap in about 90 seconds and runs on a cycle of roughly 15 minutes from about 5:15 a.m. to the last flight, from the dock beside the tunnel pavilion at Eireann Quay to the island's terminal dock. It carries passengers and a few vehicles (the airport's own, and pre-authorised ones — not private cars or limousines). Its practical timing is worse than the tunnel's because of the wait: a passenger who arrives as the ferry leaves waits up to fifteen minutes for the next, which on a cold January morning is the whole argument for the tunnel. In summer the crossing is pleasant and some passengers take it on purpose; in winter almost nobody does.

Eireann Quay: where the car meets you

Eireann Quay is the short street between Queens Quay West and the lake at the foot of Bathurst Street, beside the tunnel pavilion and the ferry dock. It has a signed passenger pickup and drop-off area, a taxi stand and the stops for the airport's free downtown shuttle bus; the Billy Bishop page has the map. Our chauffeur waits at the pickup area (or, when the Toronto Police or the airport's staff are moving vehicles along, circles Queens Quay and Bathurst and returns on your text) and is at the curb as you come out of the tunnel pavilion. The confirmation names the plate; a text from the terminal's arrivals hall — "landed, heading into the tunnel" — puts the car at Eireann Quay six minutes later, as you emerge. Meet and greet at Billy Bishop means the chauffeur waits in the mainland pavilion at the tunnel's exit with a name board; the meet and greet article explains the add-on.

Timing from downtown and the GTA

Billy Bishop's whole advantage is its proximity: from Eireann Quay the Financial District is eight to fifteen minutes east along Queens Quay or Lake Shore Boulevard and up Bay or York Street; the Entertainment District and King West ten to fifteen; Yorkville fifteen to twenty-five up Spadina or University; Liberty Village and Parkdale ten to fifteen west; the Distillery fifteen to twenty east; midtown twenty-five to forty up the Allen or Avenue Road. Farther out the numbers grow — North York 35 to 55, Mississauga 30 to 50 via the Gardiner and QEW, Markham 45 to 70 via the DVP and 404 — and beyond the city Billy Bishop's advantage over Pearson reverses, because Pearson is on the highways and Billy Bishop is at the bottom of the city's most congested grid. The Gardiner Expressway, the Lake Shore and the Bathurst-Spadina-Front box are the routes, and the Gardiner closures article explains the weekends when the Gardiner is shut and the surface streets carry everything.

Which airlines fly from Billy Bishop

Porter Airlines is the airport's founder and dominant carrier, with its Q400 turboprops serving Ottawa, Montreal, Quebec City, Halifax, Moncton, Fredericton, Saint John, St. John's, Thunder Bay, Sault Ste. Marie, Sudbury, Timmins, North Bay, Windsor and, across the border, Boston, Newark, Chicago Midway, Washington Dulles and seasonal destinations (Porter's jets fly from Pearson, not Billy Bishop — a distinction that has confused more than one passenger; see the Terminal 1 vs Terminal 3 article). Air Canada Express flies the Montreal and Ottawa shuttles with the same aircraft type. There is no jet service — the airport's runway and its tripartite agreement with the city and the port authority prohibit it — and the destination list is therefore short-haul: Eastern Canada and the US Northeast and Midwest.

US flights: pre-clearance and the customs hall

Passengers flying to the US from Billy Bishop clear US Customs and Border Protection at the airport before boarding — pre-clearance opened in 2021 — which means arriving in Boston or Newark as a domestic passenger. Passengers arriving from the US clear Canada Border Services in the terminal's arrivals customs hall, a small facility that processes a turboprop's load in ten to twenty minutes; the included wait after a US arrival is the international allowance the flight delays article describes.

Taxis, the shuttle and rideshare at Eireann Quay

Eireann Quay has a taxi stand that is adequate for one aircraft's load and inadequate for three landing together — the queue at 6 p.m. on a Thursday, when the Ottawa, Montreal and Newark flights arrive within twenty minutes, is the longest wait most passengers experience at the airport. The airport's free shuttle bus runs from Eireann Quay to the Fairmont Royal York and Union Station every fifteen minutes or so and is the honest single-traveller alternative for the Financial District. Rideshare pickups are permitted at Eireann Quay and are surge-priced at the same 6 p.m. peak. A booked black car is at the curb when you come out of the tunnel and its fare was fixed when you booked it; the limo vs taxi comparison has the arithmetic.

When Billy Bishop beats Pearson — and when it does not

For a downtown Toronto passenger flying to or from Ottawa, Montreal, Boston, Chicago, Newark, Halifax or any other Porter destination, Billy Bishop wins on every measure: the terminal is small and fast, security takes ten minutes, the aircraft boards from the ground, and the car ride at the Toronto end is ten minutes instead of forty. The Pearson vs Billy Bishop comparison works through the cases in detail; the short version is that Billy Bishop loses when the destination is not on its list (anything beyond a turboprop's range, or any long-haul connection), when the passenger is starting from north of the 401 or outside the city (Pearson is on the highways), and when the weather is bad — turboprops and a lakeside runway mean Billy Bishop cancels and delays more than Pearson in fog, ice and high winds, and its passengers are sometimes bused to Pearson.

Weather, the lake and the delays

Billy Bishop's lakeside position gives it fog in spring and fall, crosswinds in any season and ice in winter, and its single main runway and turboprop fleet make it more delay-prone than Pearson. When Porter cancels a bank of flights the airline rebooks and, on occasion, buses passengers to Pearson for a jet; our flight tracking sees the cancellation and dispatch texts the passenger with the options. A Billy Bishop booking carries the same wait policy as Pearson, and a passenger whose flight is diverted to Pearson has a car that moves with them for Pearson's fare.

The waterfront around the airport

Eireann Quay sits in the middle of the western waterfront — Little Norway Park beside the tunnel pavilion, the Music Garden and the Harbourfront Centre east along Queens Quay, the Bathurst Quay condominiums, the Loblaws and the Canada Malting silos, the Fort York and Coronation Park to the north-west, the Harbourfront guide's territory — and in summer the area's events (the Redpath Waterfront Festival, the Canada Day fireworks, the Honda Indy's closure of Lake Shore Boulevard) change the approaches to the quay; dispatch has the dates and the Harbourfront limo guide covers the neighbourhood.

Cruise passengers, Toronto Islands visitors and the quay

Eireann Quay is also a landmark for two other groups: passengers for the Toronto Islands' ferries, which leave from the Jack Layton Ferry Terminal a kilometre east at the foot of Bay Street (not from Eireann Quay — the Toronto Islands article sorts the two out), and cruise passengers at the Port of Toronto's terminal in the Port Lands, four kilometres east (the cruise passengers article covers the transfer from either airport).

Billy Bishop quick reference

Booking a Billy Bishop car

The Billy Bishop page has the fares from Eireann Quay to every part of the city; the engine takes the flight number and returns the fixed fare; the notes field takes a meet and greet request or a child seat. Text from the arrivals hall, walk the tunnel, and the car is at the quay.

The 6 p.m. bank and the Eireann Quay crowd

Billy Bishop's schedule bunches: the Ottawa, Montreal, Newark and Boston flights land within twenty minutes of each other at the end of the business day, and Eireann Quay — a street the width of a laneway — absorbs three hundred passengers, a taxi queue, the shuttle bus, a dozen rideshare drivers circling and the condominium residents trying to get home. Our procedure for the bank is the same as for the quiet hours but the text matters more: the chauffeur waits on Queens Quay or in the Bathurst Quay lot rather than at the curb, comes to the pickup area on your "heading into the tunnel," and is there for the six minutes you are underground. Passengers who walk out and then text wait; passengers who text and then walk do not.

Drop-offs: the departures side of the quay

For departures the chauffeur drops at the same Eireann Quay pickup area — there is no separate departures curb — and the passenger walks into the pavilion, takes the elevator down, rides the walkways and comes up in the terminal's check-in hall six minutes later. Porter's recommended arrival is 45 minutes before a domestic flight and 60 before a US one, and the terminal is fast enough that passengers who arrive 30 minutes before a domestic departure usually make it; our confirmation times the pickup for the airline's recommendation and the rush hour article explains why a Financial District pickup at 5 p.m. for a 6 p.m. flight needs the full half hour for a two-kilometre drive.

A note on the name, the history and the debates

The airport opened in 1939 as Port George VI Island Airport, was renamed for the First World War ace Billy Bishop in 2009, and has been the subject of Toronto's longest-running civic argument — over jets (prohibited), over the bridge that was cancelled in 2003 and replaced by the tunnel in 2015, over the tripartite agreement between the city, the port authority and the federal government that governs it, and over its future when that agreement expires in 2033. None of it affects a passenger's morning; all of it explains why an airport two kilometres from Bay Street has a tunnel and a ferry and no road.

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