Region of Waterloo International Airport - YKF

[plam]

If you'd read my message above (which you quoted in your reply!) you'd know those things *are* being used. They weigh and measure your bag at the YKF check-in desk, and then they tag it. They also use the document scanners at the YKF check-in desks to do document verification.

You actually don't have to re-do everything at YYZ. Your bag is already tagged, your passport is already verified, etc. If your destination is international they won't let you on the bus without the passport verification (including checking required visas).

What they don't do at YKF is security.

My only real complaint about the service is the YYZ -> YKF direction. I wish the bus left from somewhere in the D gates at YYZ. That way one could wait for the bus airside, including in the lounge.

I read your message just fine, but these things do not require YKF. When you arrive at YYZ, you put your bag on the automated scanner yes? It is weighing/processing your bag there. I do the same thing when I arrive at YYZ without going through YKF first. My passport is also already checked because I do online check-in.

None of these things actually require YKF. It's exactly the same process at YYZ when I arrive. Even if they wanted to provide checkin as a service, it still doesn't require YKF, all it requires is a laptop. Even PRINTING the bag tag, which is something you cannot do online, only takes about 20 seconds at Pearson. But even that, doesn't actually require YKF, it's simply a specialized printer that is needed.

In fact, if you do online check-in, what you describe arey EXTRA checks that aren't needed otherwise, if I took a GO bus, it would depart from downtown Kitchener AND I wouldn't need to have my passport checked a second time.

I'm confused about your complaint though? What do you mean by "airside", you mean past security? This is precisely my complaint. Without this, there is literally no service provided by going to YKF, if the bus arrived/departed inside the security zone, it would be valuable. You could do security, bag checking, etc. at YKF and then your arrival at YYZ would be a simple connection.

As taylortbb said, it's actually the service of *not* transporting you if your passport and visas don't check out, or if your bag is too heavy. (They are actually stricter than what is actually required because they get fined for transporting rejected passengers). When I do online checkin for international flights I also often get called at the gate for a physical passport check, which would now happen at YKF. Though that indeed only requires a laptop and they would use the machine-readable passport scanner.

(I had a disagreement with YVR checkin once where they thought I needed a NZeTA to enter NZ, but I have a visa and hence am in fact ineligible for the NZeTA.)

I also guess that leaving from not-YKF is kind of confusing if you are selling tickets from YKF. Kitchener GO is not an airport! Though there was some US carrier that used to, as I recall, sell train segments as "flights" in a similar way. And Air France/KLM has forever operated the Montreal-Ottawa bus. Apparently the Ottawa train station has airport code XDS. I don't know how that service works.

It would indeed be nice to be able to stay post-security until the bus actually leaves.