Toronto Closing Terminal 2 for New Terminal 1

Passengers at Pearson International Airport won't have Terminal 2 to kick them around anymore in 2007.

Shambling, homely and, well, interminable, the former cargo facility will close Jan. 29 after 35 years of frustrating flyers.

In its place will be the massive new international pier at Terminal 1, which was brought to the verge of completion in 2006. It will open Jan. 30.

"I'm trying to find someone who will (lament the loss) of Terminal 2 and I can't do it," says airport spokesperson Scott Armstrong.

"No one has a good thing to say about it."

The pier is a key piece of the airport's ongoing, $4.4 billion expansion project that will make it one of the world's most streamlined and sophisticated when it's completed early next decade.

The 600-metre Pier F, built in the shape of a gigantic mallet, will take in all of Air Canada's international and cross border flights, and bring the anchor airline's entire Pearson service under one roof for the first time in a decade.

"It will be tremendously better," says Armstrong.

"You are cutting down on busing, you are cutting down on transferring between terminals and you have an improved level of service as far as customs and immigration goes."

United Airlines and U.S. Airways will also inhabit the new space, as will several of Air Canada's Star Alliance partners.

The new pier - which juts out of the back of the sweeping, glass lined T1 at its mid point - will be chock full of public artworks by such internationally know sculptors as Richard Serra and Sol LeWitt.

As well, it will house a number of high-end retail outlets, including Canada's largest duty free facility.

Finally, its opening will mean the entire front section of the terminal - or central processor building - will be opened to passengers. The eastern half of the curving, wing-shaped facility has been closed off since it opened in 2003.

The new addition will bring Pearson's passenger capacity up to 38 million - some seven million more than the record 31 million flyers the airport handled last year.

Future expansions are scheduled to bring the capacity up to 52 million passengers around 2012.

2006 also saw the opening in July of the new people mover train, which runs between Terminal 1 and Terminal 3 and out to a long -term parking facility.

Beginning in April, T2 will be torn down to make way for further expansions of the $3.3 billion T1 project.

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