Pearson Airport to Upper Canada College

How does a boarder get from Pearson to Upper Canada College?

The alternatives for an unaccompanied fourteen-year-old are the airline's own unaccompanied-minor service, which hands the child to a named adult at the arrivals door and no further; the school's arranged transport on the busiest days, which the school coordinates and which this service is often part of; and a taxi, which no parent books. The chauffeur is the named adult the airline hands the child to, the car that ends at the boarding house, and the two texts that tell the parents in Hong Kong that it worked. The pickup page explains the meeting points and the family and accessible page the unaccompanied-minor procedure in detail.

The school, the boarding houses and the door

Upper Canada College occupies a campus on Lonsdale Road at Avenue Road in Forest Hill, with the clock tower on the main building visible from Avenue Road, the Upper School on the Lonsdale side and the Prep on the Kilbarry side. The boarding houses — Seaton's and Wedd's — are on the campus's north side, reached from the drive off Lonsdale Road at the main gate, and the boarding staff meet arrivals at the house door on term-start days and at the main entrance on others. The chauffeur enters at the Lonsdale gate, stops at the house, brings the bags to the door and waits until a member of staff has taken the boarder in; the parents' text goes at that moment. Day boys living in Forest Hill, Rosedale and the Annex who fly in with their families are an ordinary Toronto address at the same fare.

The unaccompanied minor: how the handover works

An airline's unaccompanied-minor service — booked by the parents with the airline — escorts a child through the arrival, the immigration line and the baggage hall and hands them 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 the child through, and the handover is signed. From that moment the child is with a named, licensed, vetted chauffeur — the school and the parents know who — in a car with the door-to-door confirmation. The chauffeur does not leave the child at the school gate; the boarding staff take the handover at the house. For a boarder over the age the airline requires an escort for, the same meet and greet inside the hall does the same job without the form.

The boarding calendar and the trips it makes

A UCC boarding year is a calendar of airport trips: the arrival in the first week of September, the Thanksgiving long weekend in October when many boarders fly to family in New York or Chicago, the closed weekends when the houses empty, the December departure in the week before Christmas and the January return, the March break, the Easter weekend, and the end-of-year departure in June 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 one; the December and June departures are the heavy ones, with the SUV or Sprinter sized for the load at booking, and the school's own calendar of departure days is the one the chauffeur plans around. The departures page explains the check-in cut-offs for an unaccompanied minor, which are earlier than an adult's.

Parents' weekends, graduation and the visit

Parents fly in for the October parents' weekend, for the December carol service, for the spring events and for the June graduation, and the hotels for a UCC visit are the ones on Avenue Road and in Yorkville — the Park Hyatt at Bloor, the Four Seasons, the Hazelton, the Windsor Arms — ten minutes from the school. 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 on Yorkville Avenue, a day at the ROM or at Niagara Falls for a family that has flown from overseas to see their son and the country at once. Graduation in June is the largest version — grandparents, the trunk, the flight home the same evening — and the family car waits on Lonsdale Road.

Sport, tournaments and the school's traffic

UCC's teams travel: hockey, rugby, soccer and basketball tournaments across the province and into the United States, the debating and model-UN trips, the exchange programmes with schools in Britain and Australia whose visiting pupils arrive at Pearson as a group. 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. The school's visiting speakers, the admissions families touring from overseas, and the alumni association's events at the campus bring the adult traffic on the same fare.

From the school: the city and the province

UCC is in the middle of the city's best neighbourhood for a visiting family, and the chauffeur is the connection to the parts of the province a boarder's family wants to see on a long weekend: the Muskoka lakes two hours north, Blue Mountain for a March-break ski weekend, the Stratford Festival in summer, and the day trips to Niagara. The chauffeur also connects the school to the other schools: a boarder with a sibling at Havergal or Branksome Hall is a ten-minute transfer across the city on the same booking, and a family with children at two schools books both drops on one confirmation.

What the fare includes

The fare from Pearson to Upper Canada College is fixed by vehicle class for the Lonsdale Road address and includes the chauffeur, the vehicle, fuel, tolls, taxes, curbside pickup at the pre-arranged area and the included waiting — sixty minutes on international arrivals, thirty on domestic — with the flight tracked so a delay moves the pickup rather than costing the car. 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. Boarding families that make six trips a year keep a profile with the school's corporate account or their own.

Custodians, guardians and the house's sign-out

An international boarder under eighteen holds a study permit that names a custodian in Canada, and most UCC boarding families also have a guardian in Toronto — an aunt in Forest Hill, a family friend in Rosedale, a professional guardian service — who takes the boy on closed weekends. The chauffeur's profile for the family carries all three addresses: Seaton's or Wedd's, the guardian's home and the airport, and any leg between them is a fixed fare from the same confirmation. The boarding houses sign a boy out for an airport departure against the written authorisation the parents lodge with the school, so we send the chauffeur's name, photograph and vehicle to the house as well as to the parents the day before; the housemaster knows who is coming and at what time. The school's CAIS accreditation is the standard those procedures follow, and we work inside them rather than around them.

The January return and the diverted flight

The first week of January is the trip of the boarding year that tests the arrangement: a boy who left Lagos or Mexico City eighteen hours earlier lands at Pearson into a squall at minus fifteen, in the dark, at an airport running on winter delays. The chauffeur has read Ontario 511 before leaving, the car is warm inside the pre-arranged area, and the forty minutes down the 401 and Avenue Road are driven on winter tyres by someone who has driven them every January. When the airline diverts a flight to Montréal or Ottawa — it happens a few times each winter — the rebooking comes from the airline for the next day, the chauffeur is re-timed to the new flight at no charge, and the boarding house and the parents are both told; the one thing that never happens is a fourteen-year-old working it out alone in an unfamiliar arrivals hall.

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