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The Canadian Border Services Agency has fined WestJet $5,300 for sending arriving international passengers through the domestic arrivals area at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport, bypassing customs, CBC News has learned.

With their passports and declaration papers in hand, 53 passengers disembarked WestJet flight 1245 from Tampa, Fla., on Feb. 15 and headed for Canadian soil, unchecked by customs.

When contacted by CBC News about the incident, WestJet officials said one of its employees opened a “swing gate” — a door which routes deplaning passengers to either domestic or international arrivals — the incorrect way.

“There were a few [passengers] that only made it a few feet,” said WestJet representative Richard Bartrem. “This is an error that we recognized nearly immediately, but some people did manage to get down into the arrivals hall, so at that point WJ informed the CBSA immediately of the situation.”

Bartrem said WestJet then made intercom announcements, calling their Tampa passengers back. He said all of the passengers were rounded up and sent to customs.

CBSA said it issued a $5,300 fine for the incident.

“WestJet has been made aware of this serious infraction and an administrative monetary penalty [AMP] was issued against the airline,” CBSA said in an email to CBC News.

Reg Whitaker, a former government adviser on aviation security, said as harmless as the incident turned out, it shows a “weakness in the system, which could be exploited.”

“Whether it’s people bringing in elicit materials, drugs, etcetera, etcetera, or whether it’s terrorists or people who wouldn’t be admissible or something like that, who knows? The point is that there is a potential there and clearly if it does happen then that’s something that really has to be looked at.”

This isn’t the first time WestJet has been fined for swinging gates the incorrect way. The Calgary-based company had five similar incidents in the last year across Canada. But Bartrem said it is still a rare occurrence.

“Since January of 2009 … [there have been] more than 10,000 inbound flights that are either coming in from international or trans-border from the United States,” he said. “There have been five occurrences since January of 2009. So we’re talking about less than a decimal point on the percentage side.”

Under the Customs Act, the airline is responsible for sending its passengers straight to customs; if the gate is swung in the incorrect direction, it costs the airline $100 per person passing through it.

Whitaker said it’s crucial airlines be fined for contravening the act this way.

“The air carriers have to be cognizant and being fined is certainly going to impress on them the necessity of making sure this kind of incident doesn’t happen again,” he said.

CBSA officials said international passengers have always been accounted for in such incidents.

“If an airline has inadvertently sent passengers to the domestic area, to our knowledge, all passengers have always been escorted back to the controlled area to be screened before entering Canada,” the agency said in an email to CBC News.

WestJet’s Bartrem said the company is trying to place an end to the errors.

“Going back and reinforcing through training and through communications that everybody understands that you are working a swing gate … make sure that they know where the plane is coming in from, and that they’re taking the proper steps to make sure that those doors are locked off correctly so that the people are presenting themselves before customs agents,” he said.

While it is the air carrier’s responsibility to get passengers to customs, Whitaker said there should be no opportunity for incidents like this to happen at all, but that would require changing airport infrastructure.

“I reckon that the real remedy would be that the airport simply doesn’t permit that physical or structural potential. That there would be some kind of complete segregation between incoming flights from abroad that are required to process everybody through customs and those that are arriving domestically where that’s not necessary,” Whitaker said.

In 2003, Air Canada allowed 209 passengers to walk out of Ottawa’s MacDonald-Cartier International Airport without customs clearance. One man couldn’t be tracked down for nine days. When he was, he declared to CBSA by phone that he hadn’t brought anything considered contraband into the country. Air Canada had to pay an administrative monetary penalty of $20,900 for that incident.

CBC News questioned CBSA how many fines have been handed out in total to international carriers across the country in the last year, but was denied the information

“Privacy requirements prevent me from providing details concerning administrative procedures,” spokesperson Vanessa Barrasa answered via email.