Delays continue as Toronto Pearson airport clears ground stop backlog

Above: The weather has improved a bit in Toronto, but you’d never know it at Pearson airport. Hundreds more flights were cancelled or delayed on Wednesday. Christina Stevens reports.

TORONTO – Passengers flying in and out of the Toronto Pearson International Airport can expect further delays into Wednesday evening, as the flight backlog continues to clear following Tuesday’s large scale ‘ground stop’.

Airplanes were not permitted to land for much of Tuesday morning due to extreme cold weather that impacted equipment and safety of employees, forcing Pearson to issue a “ground stop” prohibiting plans from landing.

The delays caused by that ground stop were still being felt Wednesday afternoon.

READ MORE: Pearson Airport criticized for lack of communication during storm

As of 3:15 p.m. ET, more than 400 flights have been cancelled overall, according to statistics on GTAA.com.

“The airlines have thinned out their schedules, so we recommend for all passengers to check with their airlines to see what changes have been made to flights,” said GTAA spokesperson Shereen Daghstani during an interview on The Morning Show.

WATCH: GTAA spokesperson Shereen Daghstani provides an update on the delays

Officials say the airfield is fully operational but delays are expected.

“We’ve had additional airport authority staff working in the terminals,” said Daghstani. “What we’re seeing is that all Canadian airports have experienced some sort of delays and or cancellations and we’re seeing that outside of Canada as well.”

But the weather has created a glut of stranded passengers waiting for delayed flights or attempting to rebook after cancellations.

Kiya Gedion landed at Pearson Airport on Tuesday on his way to Winnipeg from South America. He’s stuck in Toronto because his flight home was cancelled.

Since arriving, he’s spent over 6 hours waiting in various lines to get hotel vouchers.

Not only that, he’s yet to find his luggage among the piles of suitcases and bags piling up in the terminal.

“I’m frustrated but there’s really nothing I can do about it right, so I don’t want to get even more frustrated,” he said.

Much of the trouble was a result of the ground stop issued Tuesday morning. The airport does institute ground stops occasionally but never “in recent memory” has one been in place for as long as it was Tuesday, GTAA spokesperson Scott Armstrong said Tuesday.

“We were seeing frozen equipment, we were seeing the tugs that move aircraft were not able to move aircraft. Too cold, too slippery,” he said. “If we hadn’t put the ground stop in place we would have been in a very, very bad situation yesterday.”

Once some planes could safely depart, thereby freeing up space for arriving planes, the ground stop was lifted.

Watch the video below: If Toronto’s airport is forced to close by the cold, how do others deal with the weather? Laura Zilke reports. 

The delays at Pearson have caused criticism to be heaped upon the Toronto airport and some have compared it to airports in other Canadian cities, like Winnipeg, which deal with extreme cold weather much more frequently.  But Armstrong said the difference in delays comes down to the different size of the airports.

“If Winnipeg has a backup for a few hours, you’re talking about dozens of planes. If we have a backup for a few hours we’re talking about hundreds of planes.”

The delays come as Environment Canada ended a wind chill warning for the Greater Toronto Area.

Wednesday’s expected high is -8 degrees Celsius and temperatures are expected to climb above the freezing mark this weekend.

Friday’s high is plus 1 degrees Celsius, while Saturday will reach a daytime high of plus 9.

The deep freeze which gripped much of northeastern United States is also expected to ease with calmer winds and rising temperatures.

BELOW: Your full Skytracker weather forecast for Toronto and the GTA for Wednesday, January 8, 2014