Pearson Airport to St. Andrew's College

How does a boarder get from Pearson to St. Andrew's College?

The alternatives for an unaccompanied boy are the airline's unaccompanied-minor service, which hands him to a named adult at the arrivals door and no further, and the school's arranged transport on the busiest days, which the school coordinates and which this service is often part of; there is no train to Aurora from the airport that a parent would book for a child with luggage. The chauffeur is the named adult, the car that ends at the boarding house, and the two texts that tell the parents in Mexico City that it worked. The pickup page explains the meeting points and the family and accessible page the unaccompanied-minor procedure.

The campus, the boarding houses and the door

St. Andrew's College occupies a campus on the east side of Yonge Street in Aurora, north of Wellington Street, with the main gate on Yonge and a drive that runs past the chapel and the main building to the boarding houses on the campus's east and north sides — Memorial, Flavelle, Laidlaw, Macdonald, Ramsey and Sifton — each with its own door and a housemaster in residence. The chauffeur enters at the Yonge Street gate, follows the drive to the boarder's house, brings the bags to the door and waits until the housemaster or the house staff have taken him in; the parents' text goes at that moment. On term-start days the houses have their own arrival schedules and the campus drive is marshalled; on others the reception at the main building directs the chauffeur. Day boys living in Aurora, Newmarket, King City and Richmond Hill who fly in with their families are an ordinary York Region address at a fare close to the school's.

The unaccompanied minor: how the handover works

An airline's unaccompanied-minor service escorts a boy through the arrival, immigration and the baggage hall and hands him at the arrivals door to the adult named on the form, who must show identification. The chauffeur is that adult: the parents put the chauffeur's name on the airline form (we send it the day before), the chauffeur is inside the hall with a name board and identification when the escort brings him through, and the handover is signed. From that moment he is with a named, licensed, vetted chauffeur the school and the parents know, in a car with the door-to-door confirmation, and the chauffeur does not leave until the house has taken him in. For a boy over the airline's escort age, the same meet and greet does the same job without the form — and for a fourteen-year-old who has flown alone from Lagos, it is the difference between an arrival and an ordeal.

The boarding calendar and the trips it makes

A St. Andrew's boarding year is a calendar of airport trips: the arrival in the first week of September, Thanksgiving in October, the closed weekends when the houses empty, the December departure in the week before Christmas and the January return, the March break, Easter, and the June departure with a year's belongings and the trunk. Each is a fixed fare with the flight tracked, booked by the parents from the confirmation of the last; the December and June departures carry the trunk and the vehicle is sized for it; and the school's calendar of departure days is the one the chauffeur plans around. The school's cadet corps — the Highland cadets with their pipe band — and its hockey programme add their own trips: the spring cadet inspection that parents fly in for, and the hockey teams' tournaments across the province and into the United States. The departures page explains the earlier check-in cut-offs for an unaccompanied minor.

Parents' weekends, the cadet inspection and graduation

Parents fly in for the October parents' weekend, the December carol service, the spring cadet inspection and the June graduation, and the hotels for a St. Andrew's visit are the ones in Aurora and Newmarket — the Hilton Garden Inn and the Best Western on the Yonge corridor — or the Toronto hotels forty-five minutes south for a family that wants the city. The Friday arrival from Pearson and the Sunday departure are two fixed fares on one confirmation; the weekend is a chauffeured block with the boarder collected at the house: the school's events, a dinner in Aurora, a day in the city, or the Muskoka lakes ninety minutes north for a family that has flown from overseas. Graduation in June is the largest version — grandparents, the trunk, the flight home the same evening — and the family car waits on the campus drive.

Sport, tournaments and the school's traffic

St. Andrew's teams travel: hockey above all, with tournaments across Ontario, in Quebec and in the northeastern United States, and rugby, soccer, basketball and the cadet band's engagements. A visiting team of twenty arrives on the same flight, is met at the group meeting point inside the terminal and driven in the Sprinter and the coach on one manifest to the school, invoiced to the school on a corporate account; the school's own teams book the reverse to Pearson or to Buffalo airport for a US tournament on the cross-border service. The exchange programmes with schools in Britain, Australia and South Africa bring visiting pupils as a group on the same pattern, and the admissions families touring from overseas and the alumni events bring the adult traffic.

From the school: the 407, the city and the north

Aurora is on the 404 corridor north of the city, and the chauffeur is the connection to the parts of the province a boarder's family wants to see: Toronto forty-five minutes south for a day at the ROM and the AGO or a Leafs game, Muskoka ninety minutes north, Blue Mountain for a March-break ski weekend, and Canada's Wonderland twenty minutes south-west for a younger sibling. A boarder with a sibling at a Toronto school — UCC, Havergal — is a fifty-minute transfer on the same booking, and a boarder's guardian in the city is an address on the same profile.

What the fare includes

The fare from Pearson to St. Andrew's College is fixed by vehicle class for the Aurora address and includes the chauffeur, the vehicle, fuel, the 407 toll, taxes, curbside pickup at the pre-arranged area for a boarder travelling with a parent, and the included waiting with the flight tracked. Meet and greet inside the arrivals hall with a name board is the one paid add-on, and for an unaccompanied minor it is the service; gratuity is never added; a cancellation before dispatch is free; the parents receive the confirmation, the chauffeur's name and vehicle the day before, and the two texts on the day.

Custodians, guardians and the housemaster's sign-out

A St. Andrew's boarder from Mexico, Nigeria, Korea or Bermuda holds a study permit that names a custodian in Canada, and most families also have a guardian — a relative in the city, a family in Aurora or Newmarket, a guardian service — who takes the boy for closed weekends when the houses empty. The family's profile carries the boarding house, the guardian's home and the airport, and any leg between them is a fixed fare from the same confirmation; a guardian in the city is a forty-five-minute run down the 404 on a Friday afternoon and back on Sunday evening, often booked as a standing order. The housemaster signs a boy out for a chauffeured departure against the parents' written authorisation, which the school holds, and we send the chauffeur's name, photograph and vehicle to the house the day before. The school's CAIS accreditation sets the standard the sign-out follows.

The January return up Yonge Street

Aurora in January is colder and snowier than the city, and Yonge Street north of Richmond Hill is the stretch that drifts. A boy who left Mexico City the previous evening lands at Pearson in the first week of January into a squall at minus twenty, and the chauffeur has read Ontario 511 before leaving, has a warm car at the pre-arranged area, and takes the 407 and Yonge Street on winter tyres with the campus drive — which the school plows early on term-start days — as the last half-mile. A flight diverted by weather to Montréal or Ottawa is rebooked by the airline for the next day; the chauffeur is re-timed to the new flight at no charge, and the house and the parents are both told. The same name board meets the new flight.

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