No one called in the army – but plenty of people called their travel advisors – as 2026’s latest winter storm hit southern Ontario with record-breaking snow and brought widespread cancellations to Toronto Pearson Airport and Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport.

Meanwhile the storm continues to move east, hitting parts of Quebec including Montreal today, and bringing up to 30 cm of snow for the Atlantic region in the next couple of days. Both Air Canada and WestJet have added a number of travel alerts for Quebec and Atlantic Canada gateways (see lists below).

Yesterday’s snowfall at YYZ totalled 46 cm, breaking the previous record set in 1937. Downtown Toronto received 56 cm.

Back in January 1999 when Toronto’s then-mayor Mel Lastman famously called in the army to help Toronto dig out, there was 100 cm of the white stuff.

Airlines are in recovery mode at YYZ today after yesterday’s pummelling. More than 500 flights were cancelled at Pearson airport Sunday. According to the CBC, by Sunday morning more than half of YYZ and YTZ flights were cancelled.

An update from the Pearson Airport site shows that out of 483 scheduled departures in the next 24 hours, 58% are currently on time, 11% are delayed and 31% are cancelled. Out of the 501 arrivals, 49% are on time, 17% are delayed and 35% are cancelled.

In the U.S. there were more than 11,400 cancelled flights yesterday due to the storm.

This Morning's Update from YYZ

This morning Pearson Airport spokesperson Sean Davidson told CityNews that  “the snow has stopped but the work continues throughout the day,” noting that YYZ’s runways cover 5 million square metres. Crews continue to plow snow (and since there’s nowhere to put it, they melt it on-site). He said Pearson is working around the clock with its airline partners to work through the backlog of flights.

On CP24, Pearson’s airport duty manager Andre Nadeau noted that, like yesterday, YYZ has a reduced departure rate today – “for the morning operations it’s about half of what we normally do” due to the volume of snow still on the airfield – with the number of departures expected to increase throughout the day as operations get back on track. Nadeau added: “It will be full-swing operations hopefully by [Tuesday]” while noting it will still be a multi-day recovery.

On X this morning Pearson Airport posted: “Air traffic management initiatives remain in place to safely manage aircraft movements. The severe winter weather impacted flights to and from Toronto Pearson, and flight schedules may change throughout the day as airlines work to restore normal operations following yesterday’s delays and cancellations. Flights to and from Atlantic Canada and certain parts of the U.S. may be impacted today as the system moves through the region.”

At YTZ’s site, the arrivals board was mostly delays and cancellations up until noon or so, with things improving this afternoon. Departures were faring a bit better but still showing a high number of delays and cancellations.

Air Canada, WestJet & Porter

Air Canada’s winter operations travel alert is in effect for a number of U.S. cities, allowing passengers travelling to and from those cities on the listed dates to change their flights free of charge.

Jan. 26 – Bathurst, NB (ZBF), Boston (BOS), Charlottetown (YYG), Cleveland (CLE), Deer Lake (YDF), Fredericton (YFC), Gander (YQX), Goose Bay (YYR), Halifax (YHZ), Houston (IAH), Moncton (YQM), New York (EWR), New York (JFK), New York (LGA), Ottawa (YOW), Philadelphia (PHL), Pittsburgh (PIT), Quebec City (YQB), Raleigh Durham (RDU), Saint John, NB (YSJ), St. John’s, NL (YYT), Sydney (YQY), Washington (DCA) and Washington (IAD)

Jan. 27 – Bathurst, NB (ZBF), Boston (BOS), Charlottetown (YYG), Deer Lake (YDF), Fredericton (YFC), Gander (YQX), Goose Bay (YYR), Halifax (YHZ), Moncton (YQM), Raleigh Durham (RDU), Saint John, NB (YSJ), St. John’s, NL (YYT), Sydney (YQY), Washington (DCA) and Washington (IAD)

For more information from Air Canada, click here.

WestJet is also offering its flexible rebooking policy for a number of cities. Here’s WestJet’s list …

Jan. 26 – Toronto, Hamilton, Kitchener/Waterloo, London ON, Ottawa, Windsor, Montreal, Quebec City, Halifax, Moncton, New York JFK and Atlanta

Jan. 27 – Halifax, Moncton

For more information from WestJet, click here.

Porter Airlines’ list is as follows …

Jan. 26 – Boston, Charlottetown, Fredericton, Halifax, Moncton, New York-LaGuardia and New York-Newark

Porter’s travel alerts can be found here.

“An Increbibly Stressful Time”

For the many, many travel advisors with clients flying to, from or through Toronto, it was a weekend that wasn’t.

Travelweek connected with two Toronto-area travel advisors to find out how their teams helped clients navigate the storm.

“An incredibly stressful time for all I can assure you,” Toronto-based Susan Doherty, Branch Manager, Maritime Travel, told Travelweek. “Maritime worked round the clock to assist travellers.”

Help came from in-branch employees as well as Maritime’s ETC (emergency travel centre) team of agents, most of whom volunteered to work with the core ETC team to help, she said.

“The team had hundreds of calls with passengers all over the world stranded by the storm with delays and cancellations,” said Doherty. “I personally worked on our ETC desk and can attest that it was a constant stream of calls and emails. Hold times with airlines and tour operators were exceptionally long from 3-4 hours and beyond which, as you can imagine, was very frustrating. We are fortunate that we have an excellent system in place for this situation and were able to work through every email and call we received.”

She added: “Our ETC team is outstanding and their dedication to our clients is unmatched. They deserve huge kudos for their time and commitment to our customers.”

Most Clients Understanding – Bit Not All

It was all hands on deck all weekend, said Robert Townshend, President of Total Advantage Travel & Tours. “We had staff come in on Sunday to deal with rebooking passengers,” he told Travelweek.

“We had a group that was stuck in Thunder Bay. They were to return yesterday and the carrier said they couldn’t get back until next weekend. We had to find an emergency charter bus for them. Many other people had to stay in southern destinations until we could get them back today, tomorrow and even into Wednesday. So many travellers have asked who is going to cover their extra hotel nights and expenses. We have just told them to keep receipts and submit them when you return.”

Townshend added that one of his agency’s regular travellers, who was waiting at Pearson all day until his flight to Lisbon got called at the last minute, told the team he hadn’t seen a snow storm like this “since the winter of ’77.”

Most clients were nice and understood that the snowstorm was beyond anyone’s control, said Townshend. There were exceptions.”I did get one person yesterday that was screaming profanity to me. I had to ask him to stop or I’ll end the call. I ended up getting him home today but there was no apology for the course language.”

He added: “Right now we have about 40 people that are still stuck around the world. We hope to get everyone home by Wednesday, unless Mother Nature punches us again. My staff is so empathetic about the situation and they all agreed to pitch in and get this sorted out. Even on a Sunday!”