Pearson Airport to the University of Ottawa & Carleton

Should I drive from Pearson to Ottawa, or connect?

The train is the third option: VIA Rail from Union to Ottawa takes four and a half hours — the same as the drive — and for one student with one bag it is comfortable and cheap, though it starts with the UP Express and a change at Union and ends at Ottawa station on the east side with a taxi to the campus. The long-distance page explains how a four-hour fare is set, and the Kingston route covers the first three hours of the drive.

Two campuses, two doors

The University of Ottawa is downtown, on the east side of the Rideau Canal between Laurier Avenue and the river, a ten-minute walk from Parliament Hill and the ByWard Market; its residences — 90 University, Marchand, Stanton, Thompson, Leblanc, Hyman Soloway, the Annex on Waller Street, Rideau on Rideau Street and the newer towers — have street entrances on Laurier, Cumberland, Waller and University Private, and the chauffeur knows which street serves which. Carleton is on the south side of the city between the canal, the Rideau River and Bronson Avenue, a self-contained campus entered from Bronson at Sunnyside or from Colonel By Drive; its residences — Glengarry, Renfrew, Lanark, Russell, Grenville, Stormont, Dundas, Leeds, Frontenac, Prescott, Lennox and Addington, and the newer halls — are clustered on the campus's east side around the residence commons with a drop-off loop. The two campuses are fifteen minutes apart, and the fare from Pearson to either is the same Ottawa fare; the fare between them is a short Ottawa transfer.

Move-in, the international arrival and the missed connection

Both universities move in over the Labour Day weekend with assigned windows per residence and the campus streets marshalled; both take large international intakes in the last week of August. The international arrival that lands at Pearson with a connection to Ottawa is the ordinary case, and the Ottawa airport transfer is the twenty-minute one. The chauffeur from Pearson is for the arrival where the connection has failed: the long-haul that landed late and missed the last Ottawa flight, the regional flight cancelled by weather, the student who does not want to spend the night in the Pearson hotels and would rather be at the residence by 2 am. Those arrivals are booked from the arrivals hall by phone or by the parents overseas, met with a name board, and driven through the night on a fixed fare with a stop at the Port Hope or Kingston service centres; the pickup page explains the meeting points and the family and accessible page the luggage allowance.

Families, groups and the door-to-door case

The chauffeur's other case is arithmetic. A family of four flying into Pearson for a move-in with a Sprinter's worth of luggage pays four connecting fares, checks the bags twice and still needs a car at the Ottawa end; the Sprinter from Pearson is one fare, one loading, and the door. A group of eight international students from the same country arriving on the same long-haul, bound for residences at both universities, shares the Sprinter for less per head than the connection. And a parent's visit that begins with a day in Toronto — the chauffeured day with the family — and continues to Ottawa the next morning is a long-distance transfer with a night in a Toronto hotel in the middle. These are the trips this page exists for; the connecting flight remains the answer for the single student with one bag, and we say so at booking.

Parents, visits and the capital

Ottawa's hotels for a university visit are the Château Laurier beside Parliament Hill, the Westin and the Marriott downtown, the Lord Elgin on Elgin Street, the Novotel and the Andaz in the ByWard Market, and the Best Western and Holiday Inn properties along the Queensway; a family that has driven from Pearson arrives at the hotel after the long drive and does the campus the next morning. The visit itself is the capital: Parliament Hill, the National Gallery, the War Museum, the ByWard Market, the Rideau Canal — skating in winter, cruising in summer — and Gatineau Park across the river, all within a chauffeured day with the student collected at the residence. Convocation in June at both universities fills the hotels with grandparents from overseas, and the family car waits on Laurier Avenue or on the Carleton loop.

The working visitor: government, the Telfer and Sprott schools

Ottawa's professional traffic is the government's: the universities' policy institutes, the Telfer School of Management at uOttawa and the Sprott School at Carleton, and the departments and agencies that fill the city bring executives, visiting faculty and officials who fly into Ottawa airport and need the twenty-minute transfer, and — less often — who come from Toronto by car after a day of meetings there. A day of meetings across the two campuses, Parliament Hill and the departments along Wellington and Sparks Streets is a chauffeured block on a corporate account with monthly invoicing; the Pearson-to-Ottawa drive is booked as a working day on the vehicle's Wi-Fi when the visitor prefers it to the airports.

Winter: the 401 and the 416 in January

The Pearson-to-Ottawa drive in January is the drive the connecting flight was invented to avoid, and also the one that runs when the flight does not: the regional flights are cancelled by freezing rain and snow more often than the 401 closes, and a student whose Ottawa connection has been cancelled at 6 pm on a January evening is at the residence by midnight with a chauffeur who reads Ontario 511 before leaving and drives on winter tyres. The 416 north of Kemptville is the exposed stretch; a drive that cannot be made safely is rescheduled rather than attempted, and a trip already under way waits out a closure at a service centre with the passengers warm inside.

Departures and what the fare includes

The departure from Ottawa to Pearson is rare — the flight from Ottawa airport is the answer — but it happens: a family driving to Toronto for a few days before flying home, a student whose international flight leaves Pearson and who prefers the door-to-door drive to the connection. It is planned backwards from the flight with the terminal finder confirming the terminal and five hours of driving plus the check-in buffer. The fare is fixed by vehicle class for the Ottawa address and includes the chauffeur, the vehicle, fuel, tolls, taxes, curbside pickup at the pre-arranged area, two stops on the way and the included waiting; meet and greet is the paid add-on; gratuity is never added; a cancellation before dispatch is free.

The night drive: what a cancelled connection actually looks like

The Ottawa connection fails most often in January and in the thunderstorm season of July, and the pattern is the same: a long-haul lands at Pearson at 6 pm, the 8 pm Ottawa flight is cancelled at 7.30, the airline rebooks for the next morning and offers a hotel voucher that may or may not exist. The student calls from the arrivals hall or the parents book online from overseas; a chauffeur is dispatched from the airport pool and is at the pre-arranged area within the hour; the drive leaves Pearson at 9 pm, stops at the Port Hope service centre at 10.15 and at Kingston at midnight, and is at the residence door on Laurier Avenue or the Carleton loop at 1.30 am, where the residence's night desk is expecting the student because we called ahead. The fare is the same fixed Ottawa fare as a daytime booking — the hour does not change it — and it is, for a student who would otherwise spend the night in a Pearson hotel and fly at 7 am, the difference between arriving rested and arriving wrecked.

Book Pearson to Ottawa