TORONTO - Customs officials are sending in the cavalry to avoid a repeat of Wednesday's massive lineups at Pearson International Airport, they said Thursday.

Customs inspections booths at terminals One and Three will be fully staffed until the March Break rush is over, said Vanessa Barrasa, spokeswoman for the Canada Border Services Agency.

That means 33 officers will be on duty at Terminal One, nearly double the number working Wednesday night, she said. Another 26 will man the booths at Terminal Three.

The agency met the Greater Toronto Airports Authority and Air Canada officials Thursday morning to discuss what went wrong Wednesday and prevent it from happening again.

Thousands of travellers who landed at Pearson's Terminal One were caught in a bottleneck at customs and forced to wait up to three hours.

Authorities blame the delay on a large number of flights landing at the same time.

The incident was a "huge red flag," said Scott Armstrong, spokesman for the airports authority.

Travellers occasionally experience delays of up to 30 minutes at customs, "but nothing like this," he said. "This is very out of the ordinary, luckily."

Still, Armstrong warned there could be delays this weekend as more travellers come back from vacation.

Airport officials will be looking at long-term solutions once they get through March Break, he said.