Toronto Pearson International Airport may not have the best reputation among members of the public as of late, but the hub's most recent financial figures show that it is doing exceptionally well as far as earnings are concerned.

The second quarter results from the Greater Toronto Airports Authority (GTAA), which operates Pearson, reveal that travel into and out of the city is way up compared to last year, and so is the cash flow from all of those millions of people.

What a huge surprise ……NOT !

— GolfdaleGirl (@GolfdaleGirl) March 27, 2023

Some of the notable stats, posted on Wednesday, include a 22.1 per cent jump in passengers from the same period in 2022, reaching 11.3 million total in the last three months alone.

Even more impressive is the 46.1 per cent increase in traffic (to 21.2 million) during the first half of this year compared to last, with the company noting that demand for flights continues to soar now that COVID restrictions, some of which were still in place in early 2022, are a thing of the past.

Though this is a marked increase, this uptick in people getting away still doesn't represent the level of pre-pandemic activity in the airport, with the last quarter's numbers amounting to 88.3 per cent of Q2 2019's (and the last half's, 86.5 per cent of the volume of the first half of 2019).

As far as profits are concerned, the airport has seen revenue climb just over 20 per cent year-over-year this quarter to $463.8 million, and after a 29.6 per cent increase in operating expenses, net income spiked a staggering 57.4 per cent, to $81.1 million.

Meanwhile, net income was up 1,779 per cent (yes, you read that right) in the first half of this year compared to last, hitting $129.9 million versus the meme $6.9 million documented between January and June 2022.

This was due to new improvements that the hub had to implement quickly to ramp up service, costing hundreds of millions of dollars in a short time.

Genius as we know what a mess waiting for luggage at #YYZ can be … https://t.co/z6ZKctjYYM

— Raph (@Raphs_S) July 5, 2023

Along with the return of demand, The GTAA credits government grants and a rate and fee increase that kicked in on January 1 for its "strong" performance, also noting vigorous growth and more resiliency across the ecosystem of Pearson and the travel sector at large.

Now to fix all of the delays and other travel nightmares that customers face far too often in the hands of our air carrier duopoly.