Hamilton International Airport - Page 150

xzmattzx · #**2981** Posted **Oct 12, 2025, 2:48 PM**

I used Hamilton Airport for the first time this past August, flying to Edmonton with Porter. A partnership with American Airlines would be nice for me, with Philadelphia so close, but I have family in Buffalo, so Hamilton's airport isn't too far away for me to open up much of Canada for me.

I've used Billy Bishop Airport to explore Canada as well. I have not used Pearson Airport. That seems to be the JFK Airport of Canada, so I expect a huge mess and huge prices for parking and whatnot.

Why is parking so expensive at Hamilton Airport? Parking for two days was literally a third of the price of my round-trip airfare. Is there any other place to park? Do people park on the street in Mount Hope and walk? Do they park at the adjacent museum?

Innsertnamehere · #**2982** Posted **Oct 13, 2025, 9:48 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by xzmattzx

I used Hamilton Airport for the first time this past August, flying to Edmonton with Porter. A partnership with American Airlines would be nice for me, with Philadelphia so close, but I have family in Buffalo, so Hamilton's airport isn't too far away for me to open up much of Canada for me.

I've used Billy Bishop Airport to explore Canada as well. I have not used Pearson Airport. That seems to be the JFK Airport of Canada, so I expect a huge mess and huge prices for parking and whatnot.

Why is parking so expensive at Hamilton Airport? Parking for two days was literally a third of the price of my round-trip airfare. Is there any other place to park? Do people park on the street in Mount Hope and walk? Do they park at the adjacent museum?

not many alternatives, unfortunately. You could probably park further north along Upper James and take the A-line bus into the airport if you are desperate but that's pretty much the only option.

Hamilton airport parking used to be cheaper, but 3-4 years ago they jacked prices way up. It's literally cheaper to park at the discount lots at Pearson than in Hamilton.

King&James · #**2983** Posted **Oct 14, 2025, 11:28 PM**

Yes parking went literally through the roof. Weekly rates were $70 , so perhaps a strategic call to have people use Uber or others . Is the lot mostly vacant now?

Innsertnamehere · #**2984** Posted **Oct 16, 2025, 6:37 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by xzmattzx

I used Hamilton Airport for the first time this past August, flying to Edmonton with Porter. A partnership with American Airlines would be nice for me, with Philadelphia so close, but I have family in Buffalo, so Hamilton's airport isn't too far away for me to open up much of Canada for me.

I've used Billy Bishop Airport to explore Canada as well. I have not used Pearson Airport. That seems to be the JFK Airport of Canada, so I expect a huge mess and huge prices for parking and whatnot.

Why is parking so expensive at Hamilton Airport? Parking for two days was literally a third of the price of my round-trip airfare. Is there any other place to park? Do people park on the street in Mount Hope and walk? Do they park at the adjacent museum?

I will also note that the discount lots at Pearson aren't that bad ("Viscount" lots is what they are called on their website) price wise, $130 a week, at least for a major airport. You do need to take the shuttle train to the terminals but it's not all that bad.

It's a big, busy airport, but it handles about 30% fewer annual passengers than JFK and a higher portion of them are transfers vs. originating passengers in Toronto which keeps the overall "hecticness" of it a bit down. YYZ is closer equivalency in Canada to Atlanta and Dallas where it acts as a major hub airport for Air Canada providing connections between various domestic destinations, as well as a large international hub with huge numbers of direct international flights fed by the domestic network.

YYZ technically has the largest number of direct international destinations in north america, but it's mostly bolstered by the fact that any US-bound flight is "international". Canadian airports usually try to separate US-bound flights as "Trans-border" flights as they are functionally not really the same thing as a traditional international flight like the US would consider being that they are short range, very frequent, and have pre-clearance allowing the flights to land a domestic terminals stateside.

BCTed · #**2985** Posted **Oct 16, 2025, 6:48 PM**

They really should make an effort to provide good prices on parking. It is very easy for someone to just get triggered and flip their decision to be Pearson and it is best to give people as few reasons as possible to do that.

Innsertnamehere · #**2986** Posted **Oct 17, 2025, 3:43 PM**

Absolutely - I think their parking price changes are driving more people away than they may think. Especially since YHM's market area is mostly longer distance drives not easily supplanted by Uber or transit.

HamiltonBoyInToronto · #**2987** Posted **Oct 19, 2025, 2:20 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by BCTed

They really should make an effort to provide good prices on parking. It is very easy for someone to just get triggered and flip their decision to be Pearson and it is best to give people as few reasons as possible to do that.

so let me get this straight ...
parking in Hamilton is $70/week ($10 per day)
parking in Toronto is $130/week (almost $19 per day) this plus the added traffic and chaos of Pearson.... but someone might get "triggered" and switch to Pearson to pay more, deal with insane traffic and chaos?? LOL

HamAviMech · #**2988** Posted **Oct 19, 2025, 7:51 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by HamiltonBoyInToronto

so let me get this straight ...
parking in Hamilton is $70/week ($10 per day)
parking in Toronto is $130/week (almost $19 per day) this plus the added traffic and chaos of Pearson.... but someone might get "triggered" and switch to Pearson to pay more, deal with insane traffic and chaos?? LOL

No, parking at Hamilton is $180 a week but you typically are 8 days when you do week long vacations so you pay the extra day so parking ends up being over $200. $33 daily rate. They want you to reserve online and pay ahead. Online price for 1 week is $180 which shows $264 is the price at the exit gate if not paying ahead of time.

HamiltonBoyInToronto · #**2989** Posted **Oct 19, 2025, 8:55 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by HamAviMech

No, parking at Hamilton is $180 a week but you typically are 8 days when you do week long vacations so you pay the extra day so parking ends up being over $200. $33 daily rate. They want you to reserve online and pay ahead. Online price for 1 week is $180 which shows $264 is the price at the exit gate if not paying ahead of time.

Oh my bad ... I thought I read that it was $70... $180 is ridiculous ! especially for an airport that isn't properly serviced by a good transit system

leave it to Hamilton to do things back ass backwards !

LikeHamilton · #**2990** Posted **Oct 27, 2025, 12:47 PM**

Additional renovation work is going on in the International Arrivals Hall at YHM. They are apparently redoing it to have the same vibe and look of the rest of the terminal. They are also installing automated arrival check-in machines like the ones at YYZ and something I know is requested a lot is a dedicated Nexus line for people who have a card.

YYCguys · #**2991** Posted **Oct 27, 2025, 5:38 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by LikeHamilton

Additional renovation work is going on in the International Arrivals Hall at YHM. They are apparently redoing it to have the same vibe and look of the rest of the terminal. They are also installing automated arrival check-in machines like the ones at YYZ and something I know is requested a lot is a dedicated Nexus line for people who have a card.

Do you mean the Customs and Immigration e-kiosks? So no more paper customs forms for YHM? Yay! 🙌

LikeHamilton · #**2992** Posted **Oct 27, 2025, 7:31 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by YYCguys

Do you mean the Customs and Immigration e-kiosks? So no more paper customs forms for YHM? Yay! 🙌

Yes!

StuffedPouch · #**2993** Posted **Oct 30, 2025, 12:06 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by HamiltonBoyInToronto

Oh my bad ... I thought I read that it was $70... $180 is ridiculous ! especially for an airport that isn't properly serviced by a good transit system

leave it to Hamilton to do things back ass backwards !

YHM has lower landing fees than YYZ to attract airlines. The airport authority still has bills to pay and needs to make up the lost revenue somehow. Given that the A-Line bus goes to/from there every 10/15 mins for much of the week, it seems reasonable to me.

Pearson has to compete with private lot operators outside of their lands.

BCTed · #**2994** Posted **Nov 5, 2025, 2:51 AM**

Does anyone know how Porter (and WestJet) are doing at the airport? Someone on reddit seemed to suspect that the loads for Calgary flights were low.

LikeHamilton · #**2995** Posted **Dec 16, 2025, 5:30 PM**

Porter Winter Schedule at peak weeks.

Calgary (YYC) 5x weekly
Edmonton (YEG) 5x weekly
Halifax (YHZ) 7x weekly
Vancouver (YVR) 7x weekly
Orlando (MCO) 3x weekly
Fort Lauderdale (FLL) 5x weekly
Cancun (CUN) 4x weekly
Puerto Vallarta (PVR) 2x weekly

41 Total weekly flights from YHM

YYCguys · #**2996** Posted **Dec 20, 2025, 5:35 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by LikeHamilton

Porter Winter Schedule at peak weeks.

Calgary (YYC) 5x weekly
Edmonton (YEG) 5x weekly
Halifax (YHZ) 7x weekly
Vancouver (YVR) 7x weekly
Orlando (MCO) 3x weekly
Fort Lauderdale (FLL) 5x weekly
Cancun (CUN) 4x weekly
Puerto Vallarta (PVR) 2x weekly

41 Total weekly flights from YHM

That’s quite a robust schedule! Porter seems to be all in at YHM! Similar to how WS used to be all in there for a number of years before they moved over to YYZ. Who else is at YHM currently, other than WS and PD?

LikeHamilton · #**2997** Posted **Dec 20, 2025, 8:53 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by YYCguys

That’s quite a robust schedule! Porter seems to be all in at YHM! Similar to how WS used to be all in there for a number of years before they moved over to YYZ. Who else is at YHM currently, other than WS and PD?

Air Canada bus.

YYCguys · #**2998** Posted **Dec 22, 2025, 3:26 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by LikeHamilton

Air Canada bus.

LikeHamilton · #**2999** Posted **Dec 24, 2025, 2:51 PM**

The first passenger bridge is now open and in use. It is very nice. You would not no it was used. The second one is to open in early January.
Westjet is not going to use them (Their choice) and will be still ground boarding.

YYCguys · #**3000** Posted **Dec 24, 2025, 8:35 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by LikeHamilton

The first passenger bridge is now open and in use. It is very nice. You would not no it was used. The second one is to open in early January.
Westjet is not going to use them (Their choice) and will be still ground boarding.

I would imagine there is a cost savings for WS to continue ground loading! The other day in Abbotsford there is one bridge and it was not being used yet WS ground loaded!