Montreal's Mirabel Airport: A Disaster from Start to Finish
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- Опубликовано: 24 янв 2024
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Lol! Sure! 🤡🤣
Is all well in land of Pudding ? The Head of Pudding looking a wee bit down Pudd , Even if the Tubes of You nails that thumb still jump out the "recommended" list like a save me save me now cry for help ?
THIS is what’s wrong with society 😂
they built the airport because dorval was too small to land the concorde....
You want a real Montreal construction disaster? Look up the Olympic Stadium roof.
The company I worked for, in 1998, once booked a flight for us with a connection in Montreal. The person booking didn’t realize the connection involved changing airports. So with 3 hours between flights everyone hung around for a while. By the time someone asked about the gate and the reality that it was an hour bus ride away that connection was missed.
The French...we almost missed a flight using Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, which also is oversized so much so that you need a train to get between terminals (not unlike some other airports including SFO and JFK but even bigger it seems). What compounded the error was incompetent help from the unionized airport workers. I complained to the airport management for what it's worth, which, given French law protecting workers, is worth nothing, but even better I have not used that Paris airport for a connecting flight ever again, as I've heard stories from others that were negative as well.
At some point it comes down to planning by the passenger. I've flown through CDG many times. I make sure I know right away when I get there where my next flight departs from. Yes, transferring there is convoluted. But there are plenty of signs that direct to the terminal and gate I need to go to. I've never had to ask an employee. Now that I've been there many times, I have an mental image of the basic layout, and what flights depart from what terminal. Based on the airline/alliance and whether the destination is within the Schengen area (roughly the EU), or outside.
I'm not the only one who has complained about CDG. The only other airport that's equally almost as bad is London's LHR, but that's due to overcrowding not an incompetent layout. Germany's FRA is a half-way decent airport (by EU standards, not by international standards). Speaking as a frequent flyer.
In 1998, Mirabel was being used for Charter Flights only as international flights had been moved back to Pierre Trudeau (Dorval) a year earlier. If you flew to Montreal to board a charter flight, you would have had to change airports. Today, all flights are operated from YUL and this situation no longer occurs
So "the English" are as worst than the French. Why so racist?@@raylopez99
I grew up in Montreal during the 1970s. There was another factor for the reason of Mirabel too that I'm surprised wasn't mentioned. The Concorde. Mayor Jean Drapeau saw Montreal as being a world class city. Man and His World was a huge success. We had the 1976 Olympics on the way and its vision was lofty. Another vision then was a new kind of air travel; supersonic air travel. In 1967 Air Canada had placed orders for several Concordes and the Boeing SST planes that would be delivered before and to be use for the 1976 Summer Games. One of the other reasons for Mirabel's construction so far away from Montreal was the noise that supersonic aircraft make. The vision saw many of these newer planes landing on a regular basis so building an airport far away would take care of any noise issues the aircraft would cause. The distance of the air port wouldn't be an issue because the TRRAMM would also be built, super speed rail that would take passengers from Mirabel to Montreal within 30 minutes. All to be in full operation in time for 1976. It was a vision, a bold one that would have been on display for the world to see. Sadly it was not to be. Politics aside, the Concorde did land at Mirabel but the vision of a fleet of supersonic aircraft never materialized. High speed rail was never built but is still talked about, now between Montreal and Toronto. The 1976 Olympics left crippling debt for decades. Mirabel became a shell of its grand plans. However, it is nice to see that Mirabel did find its own place and is still in use.
Yep it’s where I’m taking my flight lessons. It’s definitely nice to have a 12 000 feet runway
My mother's family was displaced because of the plans to build Mirabel airport. I drove past this airport for most of my young adult life, my father worked as the fire chief for it and Dorval for many years and I watched many parts of it get demolished with friends. Thanks for doing a video on this.
Did they get land back!
@@somethingsomething404 No, they weren't part of the select few who did get land back. Only a small portion got their lands back.
They made some movies there too IIRC.
@@the_kombinator
Ever wondered where you could shoot a movie like “The Terminal”…?
@@BigJoe0815 Or Warm Bodies ;)
One additional note is that in 2004, the federal government renamed Dorval airport to Montreal-Trudeau after Pierre Trudeau, the Prime Minister who tried to shut down Dorval. They should slapped his name on Mirabel instead!!! 😉
The name "Trudeau" would be most suitable for a sewer or a garbage dump.
With all due respect to our late PM, pretty much everyone local still calls it Dorval. 😅
@@Rockawaysiren Unlike Toronto where Pearson managed to take hold in the public use. Of course there's the whole SkyDome thing.
Agreed. However, I think that airports (and any other public buildings) should never be named after people - all too often today's hero becomes tomorrow's villain.@@davidreichert9392
Forever Dorval.
The greatest irony? Dorval now handles the same 20 million passenger traffic volume that caused them to build Mirabel. Turns out we didn't need a new airport to handle the volume.
Given everyone especially in Dorval hates the noise the high speed rail never being built to Downtown is seen as the largest failure
One of the crapiest airports in Canada :)
That's not "irony"
Learn the definition or ironically you'll look like a dullard
The sad thing is, they will probably need that airport in the long run. But it won't be Mirabel.
The only way Mirabel would have worked as a passenger airfield would have been to close Dorval. However, Mirabel was nearly 22 miles from the city center while Dorval is just 12. I wonder if much of this was a decision by carriers to overfly Montréal for Toronto instead.
I was an airline pilot in the late1990’s. We flew a 747 from Maribel to Paris. We were the only plane on the ramp, the only plane at the airport. It felt like there had been an apocalypse and we were the last remaining survivors.
I remember catching a flight to Finland from Mirabel back in '86'. What sticks in my mind was that there were no actual skyways connecting aircraft to the terminal. Everyone got bused out to the aircraft on these giant scissor jack bus things. The terminal itself was like a giant warehouse. But I'm sure the overall goal of the terminal's creation was achieved. That being another huge capital project to keep the population of Quebec employed, without any regard for the project having any real practical purpose.
The airport wasn't a disaster. The issue was politics.
The funny thing is that when you land in mirabel, renting a car and setting off immediately for Ottawa might have been faster than the hour long bus ride and flight to Ottawa
Right? You can drive from Montreal to Ottawa and vice versa in about an hour. Who the heck would *fly* between the two?
@@SoundShinobiYuki There are flights between San Francisco and Oakland, or at least used to be. I'm talking airliners, not small planes or helicopters.
Fuel efficiency? What's that?
@@SoundShinobiYuki politicians. their houses are all in Gatineau or Montreal. Just try SUING someone in Quebec. sorta like Italy.
The highway 50 from Mirabel to Ottawa was completed only in 2012 and the highway 13 to Mirabel was never completed. The map shown is wrong.
If the Car industrie propaganda wouldn't convince so many americans that trains are bad, there could be a fast train connection between Ottawa and Toronto!
in the 80s, Lufthansa and DB had an dedicated Airport-Express between Düsseldorf and Frankfurt to cut that down and that was before the ICE HST so no dedicated routes yet
You forgot to mention that now at least it is used by Airbus (who build A220’s there) and other aerospace companies and thus provides a work site for thousands of people.
We build airbus in Canada? What? Interesting
Does airbus realize the Quebecqoi aren’t actually European as much as they try to act otherwise 😂
@@somethingsomething404 It was actually owned by Bombardier, but they spun off the CSeries to what is technically a joint venture between Airbus and the Quebec provincial govenment. The CRJ700/900 was sold to Mitsubishi but ceased production in 2019.
@@somethingsomething404 The Airbus A220 series are built there. It was Bombardier C-Series, but when that company had financial difficulty Airbus bought into it. Airbus is also now building them in their plant in Alabama - where they've been building planes for many years.
@@somethingsomething404 Yup. Also known as the Bombardier C series. Part of the deal when Airbus acquired it was that it continue to be built at Mirabel, except for those airframes for the US market which are built in Alabama.
@@WhiskyCanuckit wasn't financial difficulty, it was US protectionism. Airbus could avoid this using a plant they already had in the US.
There were likely other options, but Bombardier had become fat and lazy as a corporation over the years.
The initial plan was that all international flights to Canada had to fly into Mirabel. For a short while when I was a child, there were flights from Toronto to Mirabel to catch international flights and to Dorval if you were travelling to Montreal. This was perfectly logical to politicians - at the time there was great prestige in having bilateral agreements where the government owned airline, Air Canada, would fly to a country and that country’s national airline would fly to Canada (Montreal). The airlines and citizens outside Montreal wouldn’t stand for this, and as the video stated, the citizens of Montreal weren’t happy with this either. The model of international travel where governments owned most of the airlines outside of the US was changing, so the political plan of Mirabel Airport became obsolete.
Its communism. Thats why it failed. Making travellers spend hours of their lives, millions of pounds of extra jet fuel burned, just so Montreal could employ a few thousand people with “busy work.”
When I was a child I would fly into Montreal from the States (where my mom lives) to Dorval and my dad (who lives in Montreal) would pick me up and drive me to Mirabel to fly to visit grandparents in Germany. I always thought it was weird but never questioned it
More proof that capitalism ruins everything 😢
@homuraakemi493 unchecked capitalism and the personal agendas of Canadian politicians.
We get to pretend to pick someone every election, and the "winner" decides what to dictate at us depending on who gives them money.
Pretty standard fare.
@@homuraakemi493NO!!! Idiots do!
For people visiting family in Montreal, Dorval vs. Mirabel was the difference between them picking you up and having them laugh and tell you to go fuck yourself.
Is that typical for Montreal families ?
Today, I'd gladly pick someone up in Mirabel instead of going into the hellhole of Dorval.
First off I wanted to vomit every time he tried pronouncing Dorval. It is Dorv-Al. Not Dorv-il.
In the 90’s I flew out of Mirabel to Brussels. After being used to the 15 minute drive to Dorval the long drive to the middle of nowhere was brutal.
Another aspect not talked about was Bill 101. Many large corporations moved out of Montreal to Toronto.
Also more needed to be said about more fuel efficient planes and ETOPS.
I will say this about Dorval though. I live in Vancouver now and it has the nicest airport in Canada. Montreal’s airport is the ugliest.
@@rulinghabsi live in quebec and yes dorval is a 3 rd world country airport… a disgrace
Why you didn't build high speed rail?
"If the traffic was good"
Anyway who's from or been in Montréal can tell you that this is a gigantic and utopic "if"
The bus ride might not have been so bad if A13 was extended to Mirabel like it was supposed to.
@@lajya01 And the train. Honestly, that train would had made the whole region north of Montreal so much more developed...
@@arakwar I think it was supposed to a dedicated link between the airport and downtown. It would have been fast for the passengers but not very useful for the north shore and Laval residents
Its a huge airport with many vacant areas.
@@arakwar Even the current airport has no train or subway connection...
One of the other problems people don't really talk about is that they thought the population was going to keep growing in that area but in the early 70.s a lot of people moved to Ontario with the FLQ crisis in Quebec
Exactly! I was going to post the same thing. Montreal was not only Canada’s largest city but also the financial centre of Canada. The FLQ crisis resulted in Toronto taking over both titles.
@@roger1818 So basically a bunch of out of control Quebecois extremists (FLQ) ended up making Montreal worse while thinking their actions were striving for the betterment of Quebec. The irony is palpable, but extremists of any kind are rarely smart people, so it tracks.
That's a popular narrative in some West Island circles, but in retrospect, Montreal's economic decline had started before the FLQ was even a thing, when it stopped being a mandatory stop for sea shipments to anywhere inside North America with the opening of the St. Lawrence seaway in 1959 which allowed direct passage to the Great Lakes. Company headquarters already started moving to Toronto from that point. As for demographics, the departure of thousand of English speaking Montrealers after the election of the PQ (not FLQ) in 1976 is certainly a sad thing, however, it accounted for very little in the grand scheme of things population-wise: simply put, urban planners in the 60s didn't realize the Baby Boom would stop.
@@stephanedupuis2304 Quebec nationalism stunted and stalled Montreal's growth for decades. This is no secret.
@@voidstrider801 a better irony is that the main argument for separation was they couldn't be french AND canadian - needed independence to preserve their culture. All the language laws they passed in the 70's & early 80's killed their main reason for leaving, its arguably more french now than it was in 1900.
As a kid who had to drive up there from Montréal as a kid to pick up family members, I hated how far away it was. However, once there, it was a lovely airport, with fantastic architecture, great signage, and modern amenities.
The main tenets of the Mirabel project were sound, and despite circumstances changing along the way, a competent execution would've definitely salvaged it, along with giving Montréal (and Ottawa) a worthwhile infrastructure. There's little Montréal could've done to prevent the double-whammy of losing direct flights AND economic dominance to Toronto in the 70's, but there's no excuse for the mishandling of land expropriations in fantastic agricultural land, transit, and location.
The concept of preparing for growth, in a more sustainable and suitable location than the vetust installations that are much harder to expand due to being located in a fully built-up area, is laudable. Executed properly, not only would've it avoided its boondoggle status, it could've been a net positive.
When I look back at images of Mirabel, what strikes me first isn't megalomaniacal ideas of grandeur (although there was a bit of that), but rather a modern, fresh take that wasn't given the chance to succeed. It's "Oh, what might've been" rather than "Good riddance".
Same! I remember the arcades where we spent time waiting for our relatives to arrive :D
IMO, the biggest issue with the Mirabel Airport project starts with a "C" and ends with "orruption".
Specifically, it was sabotaged by bureaucrats in Montreal who had a vested interest in keeping Dorval going.
Ironically, the highways and rail that were canceled are now desperately needed to serve the growing population of the area anyway, and that is WITHOUT the potential growth the airport would have brought to the area.
Meanwhile, Dorval is a horrendous airport. Driving in and out of that place gives me PTSD.
Mirabel is just way too far and financially nobody could have paid for the entire project. Just 10 kickstart Mirabel the government had to sabotage Dorval with the international/domestic flight scheme which was a retarded idea.
Bureaucrats in Montréal??? Airports are under federal jurisdiction and not municipal or provincial. At the same time that Mirabel started getting business, the Feds agreed to a major expansion of Pearson Airport in Toronto. That and the fuel economy of newer planes contributed to the doom of Mirabel. As for the bureaucrats, they were told what to do by the politicians of the time - Mirabel was just another shit show.
You're right. The biggest actor in this corruption? A little airline called Air Canada, who didn't want to see Air Transat, founded by our now Premier François Legault, who were based at the Mirabel Airport, get any success.
I went to Québec once in 1992 and arrived at Mirabel and effectively the bus ride to Montreal, for someone with hours of flight already, seemed to never end.
Fun fact as a resident of the area, it only takes 30 minutes to get to montreal from mirabel
Omg, not a whole half hour!? You are a warrior of travel.
@@notDonaldFagen the point is it is far from a one hour bus ride. It has nothing to do with being atravel warrior and everything to do with misinformation. Crawl back into your rock.
How do you feel when you go to Paris?
@@jonmc6573 Sure, *if there's no traffic and you're talking about reaching the very edge of Montréal.* Then yes, it would be about 30 minutes. Going downtown to the opposite end of the city after a flight which arrives in the morning? Not so much.
Another Montreal disaster is their Olympic Stadium: As early as 1963, Montreal Mayor Jean Drapeau sought to build a covered stadium in Montreal. A covered stadium was thought to be all but essential for Drapeau's other goal of bringing an MLB team to Montreal. In 1967, soon after Montreal was granted an expansion franchise for 1969, Drapeau wrote a letter promising that any prospective Montreal team would be playing in a covered stadium by 1971. Around the same time, Montreal was bidding for the 1976 Summer Olympics which they were awarded in 1970, thus another reason for Drapeau to get the big stadium he wanted.
The stadium was designed by Roger Taillibert to be an elaborate facility featuring a retractable roof, which was to be opened and closed by cables suspended from a huge inclined 165-meter (541 ft) tower. The stadium was originally slated to be finished in 1972, but the grand opening was cancelled due to a strike by construction workers. Taillibert was also unwilling to change his original design, and so the Quebec government lost patience with the delays and cost overruns in 1974 and threw Taillibert off the project. And Montreal's brutal winters didn't help either. So when the Olympics took place, the stadium opened incomplete. After the games, the Montreal Expos moved to it in 1977, the tower wouldn't open until 1987, and there was low attendance at games due to the bad conditions (which the 1994 MLB strike also didn't help with). The Expos eventually moved to DC in 2004 and re-branded as the Washington Nationals.
BUT the stadium finally did get the massively expensive retractable kevlar roof in 1987, a full decade later than planned. Lo and behold, in a matter of months, the roof proceeded to rip up at several places. In 1991, one of the stadium's support beams snapped and a 55-ton concrete slab fell on an exterior walkway. It took a full year to fix that during which the roof proceeded to massively rip apart after a windstorm. In 1992, due to the fragile nature of the roof, it was decided to no longer retract it and remained closed. After costing the city millions in repair costs, in 1998 the severely patched up kevlar roof was removed and replaced with a costly yet non-retractable opaque one instead. In 1999, part of that new roof collapsed under the weight of ice and snow which fell unto Montreal Auto Show staff members. Future booked shows promptly cancelled and relocated elsewhere, a severe loss of revenue for the stadium.
Birdair, the company that provided the non-retractable replacement roof was then SUED for the roof's failure. Their defense was that Danny's Construction, the construction crew they hired to install the roof, used a subcontractor to install it for them and did it incorrectly so Birdair completed the installation themselves after firing Danny's Construction which in return proceeded to sue Birdair back and won their case after a lengthy legal battle. Several plans to replace that roof were proposed, all at tremendous costs. In 2012, another concrete slab fell in one of the stadium's underground parking garages, a clear sign that the stadium itself is falling apart. Less than a week ago, new plans for a new roof with a massive glass ring and a hard shelled center were unveiled, with building and installations costs expected to, well, literally go through the roof.
The stadium was a massive engineering and architectural feat for the time but yet again, another delusion of grandeur that should've never been approved for construction.
At least it has the music history value of being the place where Pink Floyd's The Wall was conceived 😅
Mirabel was not a Montreal disaster it was a Ottawa federal project,Quebec had nothing to do with that project airport are under Otawa supervision.
On this project, Olympic Stadium, the Montreal Mafia was heavely involved in controling the construction project. A show by itself ! Will you dare investigate this one !
The Olympic stadium deserves its own video or library of videos. What a story, that just got re-awakened again recently "again". We keep pouring public money into an empty stadium just so the Montreal postcards don't have to be reprinted without it in the skyline. I hate everything about it. I seriously can't find a single positive. Starts with the poor design by a French Architect that completely ignored that we have snow in winter here unlike most of France God bless him. Poor project execution, corruption, and now impossible to maintain or demolish and it needs a major restoration down to the pipes for the toilets. No solution in sight. Maybe one day AI will find a solution for this because humans sure can't.
I was there in 1977 when it was brand new ... and busy! And it truly was state-of-the-art at the time. My Dad, a retired air traffic controller, still raves about how good it was. The airport was not the problem. The problem was that the essential train link to downtown Montreal never got built. Splitting international and domestic flights between Mirabel and Dorval was probably not the smartest idea, but with proper transportation infrastructure to Mirabel, it could have largely replaced Dorval. There are certainly other large international airports far out of town from the cities they serve. Decent idea, TERRIBLE execution! I have driven Highway 15 past Mirabel into Montreal many time. SLOOOWWWWW. The train was essential to the plan. No doubt Quebec politics at the time was a significant contributing factor too, as the Canadian centre of gravity shifted from Montreal to Toronto, and international flights to Toronto vastly increased. No decision in Quebec can be fully understood without considering the political undertones. I was not aware that Vaudreuil-Dorion has been considered as a possible location - it likely would have been a much better choice, with better existing transportation infrastructure (highways and rail already existed) and closer to Dorval, making the international/domestic split more feasible. But it would have been just a few miles from the Ontario border - no wonder the Quebec government said no!
It really was a beautiful airport
If a new airport had been built at Vaudreuil-Dorion with high speed rail to Montreal and Ottawa, both cities' existing airports could have been replaced with one...but (literally) provincial political thinking made that a non-option.
@@ChristopherKDavis if only politicians were able to stuff their big egos and work for the good of the citizens. A man can dream though.
Gotta love how obvious the "representatives" make it that they don't represent us... or logic... or efficiency... or fiscal responsibility...
We had a perfectly viable airport but the politics decided that we ain't gonna use it.
Reminds me of the story of Ciudad Real International Airport in Spain. This was the airport featured in Top Gear series 20 when they explored its terminal and did a drag race on the runway. Like how Mirabel was meant to replace Dorval/Montréal-Trudeau, Ciudad Real International was created as an alternative to Madrid-Barajas Airport. But like what happened with Mirabel, this didn't happen the way they wanted and faced many problems. For starters, the airport is much further from Madrid than Mirabel is to Montreal as Ciudad Real's approximately 200 km from Madrid. To make up for this, the plan was to have a station on the Madrid-Seville HSR line, but this station wasn't built before bankruptcy.
During the early planning stages, some deficiencies were overlooked. The main one was its location in a Bird Special Protection Area and in the middle of the inactive Campo de Calatrava Volcanic Field, with the EU blocking its construction until environmental protection measures had been taken which included downsizing the airport facilities, thus delaying the initial opening for four years (2008 instead of 2004). On top of this, Barajas completed an expansion in 2006 so it could handle more crowds, so airlines stuck with Barajas instead of switching to Ciudad Real. And if that wasn't enough, when it finally opened in 2009, it operated during the recession so air traffic at all Spanish airports was down, and its main shareholder was the first Spanish bank that had to be bailed out. The only big business it really saw was in 2020 when airlines like Aer Lingus and Iberia parked their fleets there.
I still enjoyed going to Mirabel Airport as a little kid for the stupidly specific reason that the parking garage had a spiral ramp which was a total novelty to me. I mean, yeah, my parents weren't drifting the 1977 Ford LTD II around the spirals like it was Fast & Furious: Tokyo Drift but being a passenger in a car going up and down a spiral still somehow was as fun as an amusement park ride for me.
Dorval Airport was a lot more boring to 5-year old me, I think, at the time (circa 1980), it just had surface level parking. The big (and recently partially demolished) parking garage wasn't built until the mid-1990s if I remember correctly. But, most of the time my parents took me to an airport, it was to Mirabel Airport anyway to pick up or drop off relatives from Britain visiting us in Montreal.
I'll be sure to tell my dad - he was an engineer & designed those spiral ramps! (as we would be told every time we travelled on them, lol)
@@WhiskyCanuck That's cool to know. I only ever travelled from and back to Mirabel once as a young adult, in 1997, and I don't have a specific memory of the parking lot spiral ramps from that trip but the spirals definitely rule my little kid airport memories.
Another thing I loved about Mirabel Airport as a kid was that giant architectural model of the airport on, if I remember correctly, the top level of the terminal. I wanted my own version of it even though I think it was at least the size of our dinner table and we would have had nowhere to put it.
@@SteveBrandon I think I remember that model, also there was an arcade up there too. When we'd go to the airport to pick up a visiting relative (and waiting for their flight to arrive), or to see someone off, I'd spend a bunch of time there.
@@WhiskyCanuck Yeah, I remember trying to play the demo of an arcade game because I probably wasn't too clear on the concept of the game only being playable after you put a quarter (or two) in.
I think one of the arcade games they had at Mirabel Airport circa 1981/82 was Atari's 1981 vector graphic arcade game Red Baron, a World War I flight shooter game with quite astonishing 3D graphics for 1981 (it's just white lines on a black screen but that was state of the art 3D for arcade games in 1981).
Ok, I give you this, the ramps were fun! The high ceiling inside was neat also, much better than Dorval then and now.
I subbed because you called it Dorval Airport lol. My late dad used to always say that Dorval should have kept its name, and Mirabel should have been renamed to Pierre Elliot Trudeau International lol.
They definitely should have named his own failure with his name.
We all did !
I still call it Dorval. Just like I still call Rogers Centre Skydome.
@@mtlreinerI still call it Skydome.
Raised in Dorval, will always call it Dorval Airport, NEVER a Trudope airport.
That's crazy. You're covering something that is so close to my home and to hear it from your standpoint is pretty cool. Thanks for the video !
Hi from Lorraine lol
Right? I live in LaSalle lol
I'm surprised that you didn't mention that part of Mirabel Airport was sold off to build a racetrack, iCAR Mirabel. Features regular events and a much better use of the space
He did mention it being used for "Canadian NSCAR"
@@Nazuiko Yeah I can confirm it is not "Canadian NASCAR" lmao, he could of at least went on their website, and completely omitted the fact that Bombardier/Airbus builds the A220 there
Except icar doesn't own any of that space. It's all rented out and they are about to be kicked out to expend cargo facilities
@@DatrikZGamingit’s also used by fedex and the military. This is also where I’m learning to fly
@@marc-antoinem112they won’t be kicked out any time soon
There was a major effort by the federal government to make Mirabel useful. Thus was created the air cargo hub that you mention. The main reason that this could work was that the feds mandated that ALL cargo coming into Eastern Canada must be processed at the customs facility at Mirabel. This resulted in so much anger that to this day that many US vendors will still not ship to Canada.
I ordered a generator set for my fishing boat 20 years ago from Maine, a three hour drive from the boat at a New Brunswick dock. I asked the vendor to ship it rather that my going to Bangor to collect it as I was busy. We finally received it after 8 weeks. After that I learned what many companies and individuals already knew. Get a US Address at a US border community. Avoid so many problems.
In more recent years this is somewhat resolved, but I still often use the US address, and especially for larger items.
Berlin: hold by beer ;)
The most epic of shit show airport dramas in history... Especially with all those fire captains instead of sprinklers!
It took nearly 15 years to open that airport. But there, Tegel and Schoenfeld were both closed (part of Schoenfeld’s infrastructure became Brandenburg).
At least Berlin now works. Mirabel never really lived up to the hype...
@@that90skid72 I've flown from BER a few times and while it definitely functions it's also one of the most boring airports around... and last week it started raining indoors in the security area XD
@sendmeyourcat8391 LMFAO what a joke...so called German engineering 🤣
You missed something important. The downturn of the mirabel airport was was the effect of the departure of the major business from Montreal to Toronto due to the mandatory “francesization” of Quebec. Montreal till mid 70s was the largest and most important city of canada, where the HQ of all major companies where located. The owners and investors were mostly anglophones. With the imposition of French as working language the company simply relocated to Toronto leaving Montreal in an economic depression that lasted for almost 30 years.
This is the real reason and it's not even mentioned. I remember the whole saga as I was growing up in Ottawa.
This started the downturn of Montreal as a city but the whole 450 region has boomed since and could use an out-of-island accessible airport.
And Quebec is way better off for it today with good wealth distribution amongst the whole population instead of a few rich anglo families. Good riddance.
Keep telling yourself that, Jacques! (And ca$hing in those horrible equalization payments, funded largely by us terrible Anglo's!)@@mwrench4185
@@mwrench4185we are the highest taxed province with the highest rate of individual debt (and this was prior to the increase in property prices too). The zero sum game didn’t make the divide different it just shifted it to: the many families who are bilingue or trilingue. These same families who have been around before and since.
Poor civil infrastructure, poor brain drain, poor healthcare infrastructure etc etc etc. The whole local terrorism thing didn’t help either
As a Canadian who lives in Quebec and use to live in Montreal, i appreciate you doing a great video on this. Thanks Simon and team!
The 2004 film The Terminal features the mezzanine overlooking the immigration desks and the baggage carousels directly behind them, the tarmac and the main terminal entrance (with a digitally added New York skyline refection). All other terminal scenes were shot on a soundstage.
You could make an entire channel just out of Canadian boondoggle projects like this.
RUclips would run out of space.
Some great projects, some boondoggle. Mirabel is repurposed better now.
A lot of them came from both Trudeau eras
Better known as Quebec corruption.
Let's not forget the Diefenbaker era. Cancelling the Avro Arrow was a major blow, and the so-called "Diefenbunker" was essentially useless before it was even finished.
Retired Montrealer here who worked at both airports. Mirabel in the 90s then Dorval from 97 till last December. One of the huge factors for its failure was the shift from Montreal to Toronto as The country's economic center. Most head offices in the late 70s left Montreal due mainly to politics and the city was also stuck with a huge bill for the 76 Olympic installations that took another 30 years to pay off. With the drop in passenger traffic and a city that couldn't afford a high speed rail shuttle it just became untenable.
Fun fact, the movie The Terminal with Tom Hanks had a scene filmed at Mirabel.
Guess that is why they filmed there. No disturbance
A scene? The entire thing was filmed there. (Here)
@@notDonaldFagenOnly external shots of Mirabel were used, the interior was filmed in California. Like most movies.
Also Die Hard 2
@@PetitJoeLouisYou should check your sources on that one, pretty sure only US locations used in that amazing movie.
Mirabel: check.
Now, let's talk about the Montreal Olympic Stadium...
Keep up your excellent work!
Yes! Olympic Stadium please!!!
Absolutely! The timing of talking about it is perfect, with the provincial government wanting to flush down and waste more of the tax payers money by trying to fix it! What a joke! A not funny, very expensive joke!
With the mafia-run cement trucks rolling into one end of the job site, get stamped for payment, then roll out the other end and deliver the cement elsewhere and be double-paid. And the cement was so poor that in the 1990's a 50-ton slab sluffed off and crashed into the surrounding plaza. Quebec sait faire....
Dorval is a mess now. Even though I found my last few trips from it surprisingly smoother than Pearson (this was pre-pandemic), I can help but notice just how limited YUL is for growing out its infrastructure. While the terminal itself can grow towards the north, there are major bottleneck in arriving to the airport via. the highway that constrain the accessibility to the airport. Making the terminal larger to allow for more traffic will just add more traffic to the A520, which might be somewhat aliviated by the REM line, but it won't be enough.
Mirabel on the other hand has SO much land to expand on, sadly at the cost of the locals, but it just wasn't constrained like Dorval is. And the worst part is the agreement Aeroports de Montreal (ADM) has with Dorval, making it the sole and only international airport for the region. Porter's expansion at the nearby St. Hubert (YHU) airport could've turned YHU into a relief airport, as is the case with many larger urban areas and the secondary airports they have (Toronto, Vancouver, Paris, Stockholm), but YHU will be limited to only serving domestic markets. YUL needs to grow, but its going to be a challenge to ensure its infrastructure can actually support that growth.
It's really sad that Mirabel was neglected. Only Stockholm, Chicago and DC can manage both an urban and exurban airport. Yeah, yeah, ignore London and Dubai.
Just went through YUL my first time yesterday, the airport makes no sense. It just seems to go forever in every direction, a sprawling mess of gates and shops, and it mysteriously widens and narrows down at random points.
You underestimate the impact that REM will have, including induced demand - a fair amount of parking will be freed up and therefore approaches will be reconfigured five or so years after the REM opens and traffic patterns change. In general however the terminals need re-build and reconfiguring to grow capacity, and runway space is not yet at a premium. I do think YHU will be a success but without a REM terminal will stay small. One clear solution at Dorval is to build up the transit hub at Dorval Circle with greatly expanded parking and a faster connection to the terminals. If people could get between more distant parking, the VIA station, and the large employers along blvd Cote-Vertu, to the terminal easily and directly, it would solve a ton of traffic congestion and issues while making the entire zone much more productive.
@@Three60Mafia fair enough, but that is pretty much my experience with every major airport. I fly through YUL twice a year, but also Heathrow, Munich, Charles De Gaulle, Schipol, and Newark. You could describe them all like that.
My first flight through YUL was in the early 60s 😁
@@acchaladka As an Ottawan who sadly has to make the trek to Montreal-Dorval fairly often to pick up/drop off family due to the lack of flights out of Ottawa (plus a desire to stay the hell out of Pearson for various reasons), the powers-that-be really need to sort out the connection to the VIA station to make it an attractive option. It should probably be moved to the west side of the A520 and co-located with the Dorval AMT station and coach terminal, then an overhead skywalk built from that share facility (over all those parking lots) with one of those travellator things installed straight into the Departures hall (and thus I can avoid all the people seemingly using the Departures drop-off zone as free parking).
I flew through there multiple times. That bus ride between airports was a major pain! You didn't mention the interesting design element of the "mobile lounges" which transported people from the gates to the planes. They are still used in a few places such as Washington Dulles, but Mirabel relied on them for every flight, no jet bridges.
In the late 1960s, Montreal was basking in the glow from Expo 67 and as Canada's leading city, saw a future with a much increased demand for air travel. Then came the oil crisis and the change in the political situation in this Province and the end result was that the predicted traffic volumes would likely not be attained. This was complicated by difficulties extending highways to reach the airport and the failure to agree on a rail connection to the terminal. With the election of the PQ and the 1980 referendum, Montreal lost the title of Canada's leading city to Toronto and the airport project stalled. Today, the suburbs of Montreal have extended to the town of Mirabel and the airport probably would be more viable than back in the day, but it is unlikely that traffic will move back from YUL. Imagine how different it could have been if Mirabel would have been connected to a High Speed Rail line from downtown Montreal via the Mount Royal tunnel and connecting Montreal with Ottawa...
I grew up in the GTA and remember Toronto exploding in terms of population after the PQstes first got elected in 1976, with Canadian headquarters of international companies fleeing Montreal. I always figured that was a major factor in Mirabel becoming a "white elephant." This English lad seems to think Mirabel is inside Montreal. Last time I was there (admittedly almost 30 years ago) it seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. Also always thought Jean Drapeau was a major force behind getting it built.
Its worse today. Quebechas so much potential but when linguistic politics are more important than roads, education, infrastructure, quality of life etc, it never will improve
This is a (very) longstanding myth. You can trace back the trend that made Toronto the leading city of Canada back to the opening of the St Lawrence seaway in the 50s. Economically speaking, the political ''turmoil'' of the 70s and 80s didn't even move the needle.
Remember Mirabel airport very well. I one of the first to make an approach to RWY 24. (12000 feet long). However I did a low and over as the cement was being currently laid down. It was a dream for all us aviators back then. Mirabel was opened with the arrival of the British / French, Concorde. From my town (Point Claire P.Q.) it was a long drive up Hwy 13 and the Laurentian Autoroute. Dorval (Ex RAF ferry command base) Dorval was more convenient for us Montreal'ers.. One of my flying students from England had to catch a BA flight there after a flight lesson at Laurentide Aviation Ceders. Even with the Cherokee Warrior, it takes time to fly there. I was given a Gate right next to the City of Manchester BA 747. The service with Mirabel (Restaurant) Apron, Ground and TWR personnel was the best I had experienced. However the journey was to long for passengers from Montreal. So I could see what would eventually happen.
Did you ever work with Kevin King or Jeff Chamberlain at Laurentide?
@@mccauleyprop I knew A Claude Chamberland and David Chamberland. My presents was between 1971 - mid 80's. if that helps.
@@seanpeare-M0WSP Rog, I believe they worked there late eighties early nineties. Kevin was the CFI.
@@mccauleyprop I had moved to British Columbia in that time period. Our CFI was Henri Legier (Not sure of the spelling)
In the Quebec province we're specialist in making white elephants, the Mirabel airport, the Olympic stadium that for such a stadium doesn't see a lot of people and in the capital (Québec city), we have a ice hockey arena that was made in order to welcome a NHL franchise well let's say that the we never welcomed that team.
As a Montréalais I find it harder and harder to understand why we're still even affiliated with the government in QC. 😂😅😢
The NHL would rather have a new team in Timbuktu than in Quebec city.
Malpensa is another one - you find empty corridors - while we all struggle for flights at Linate - Munich did it right by shutting the old airport but I confess I preferred the old ones almost cozy charm - though it was clearly too small - but left open for some flights it’s access to town would have led to the Milan issue.
Malpensa is a strange one. Thru flight on Emirates JFK-DXB, stop in Milan. Aircraft parks at one gate, you have to go in, clear customs, walk to another terminal (not exactly a logical layout either) at least a kilometer away, then they tow the aircraft over to the new gate to pick you up again. Impressively weird, even for Italy...
Malpensa is also soooo far away from Milano Centrale...then again Milanese authorities could've kept Linate as a low cost airport, like Rome did with Ciampino
Mirabel was just too far away from the center of Montreal. And they never built the planned rail line between this airport and central Montreal, either. This isn't Charles de Gaulle Airport outside Paris, where one of the first things they considered was extensive rail service back to central Paris (there are plentiful RER regional rail service connecting the airport to central Paris).
I think that's it, the rail link is key. Nobody cares if an airport is 60 km from the city, they care how many minutes it is.
I Iove seeing my city in megaproject!!
I got two suggestions for you that could fit in here or side project :
The birth of Hydro Quebec and all of our mega dam in Quebec province
The Olympic stadium in Montreal is shrouded in beauty but also a lot of corruption. It's a paper weight for some and others scream for more investment. After all it is the highest angled tower in the world!
Keep it up I like what you do and your multiple channels also ❤
fuck quebec
The bus ride was betwene 30 minutes to 45 minutes between Dorval and Mirabel. But longer to downtown. There were also similar buses directo to Ottawa train station. There was no need for connecting flight to Ottawa. However, at one poitk some connecting flighst from Québec City and beyond did start. The bus at Ottawa had full check-in and baggage check-in facility and had an airlie flight umber. The move back to Dorval kept the same sustem and today, KLM and Air France still offer flights from Ottawa where first leg is operated on a equipment code "BUS". Prior to 9-11 check baggage would remain on bus after passengers got off at Dorval, and the bus would then travel airside to loaf baggage onto baggage tug brought directly to airplane.
(increased security may now require baggage to go though airport xray scanners, not sure they have those at ottawa)
Ottawa airport regularly rated one of the best in the world. It definitely has all the security required for international flight (indeed, there's some direct connection to international destination, including Paris)
I've done the connection between Ottawa and Dorval many, many time in the past ten years - I have NEVER heard of a "BUS" connection.
Lookup flight Air France 311 from XOR (Ottawa VIA station) to YUL which connects to AF 345 to CDG. KLM as similar bus to connect to its flight to Amsterdam. @@PhanieDaemonia
Ironically they named Dorval airport « Trudeau « when they should have called the Mirabel airport that
Fine example of history rewriten, a Trudeau tradition.
I remember flying through Mirabel in October/November 1984 (from Brussels), then again in January 1988 (from Paris). The author only alludes once to the (white) elephant in the room: Federal/Québec politics. The dream of $20 MM+ passengers in the 70s was the result of a federal decision (by P.E. Trudeau, if I am not mistaken) to OBLIGE all airlines flying into Canada to stop in Montréal, in a bid to appease the PQ (and maybe the FLQ too...). The collapse started when that measure was repealed - and Toronto took over from Montréal the status of economic capital of Canada. Airlines shifted most of their incoming traffic to Pearson.
Didn't rising Quebec separatism cause the downturn in traffic and outflux of people and companies from Montreal in general?
Oui. @@andyjay729
A good idea, But Mirabel was BOTCHED by the politicians up in Canada. 1. More access was needed. A freeway to Ottawa. A High-speed rail line to Montreal AND Ottawa. 3 Terminals instead of one, an International, domestic, and transborder liked by a people mover service and 3 stops on the high-spe line that would be electric,. Permanent closure of Dorval with movement of Air Canada etc. to Mirabel. with airports you go all in ( as in Dakar ) or nothing !
I actually did security guarding job at the Mirabel airport once. It was a pain in the ass to even find the place and once inside, I had a hard time noticing that it was an AIRPORT. haha. fun times.
If that was in the days before GPS, I can understand. If it was after GPS, that's a big problem.
Finally someone made a video about Mirabel airport raise and fall. I have myself both landed there and even worked there for a few months in the early 90’s. But wondered what happened with it when I moved away from Montréal in 1997 and all the times when I visited the town later where my daughters live.
Another thing: at the time Mirabel was built airports were owned and managed by the federal government. Since then, they have handed off management contracts to "non profit" organisations, and in the case of ADM, they had friends in the cnstruction industry and wanted to give them contracts. By keeping Mirabel, there was no reason to do construction (except for the few redoings of transborder area at Dorval). But with colsure of Mirabel, all of a sudden, their friend got huge contracts to rebuilt large parts of the airport terminal. It was ADM pressure by Air Canada) who made the decision to abandon Mirabel, not the federal government.
My first flight ended at Mirabel in 1979 ( in August, on a DC-10 no less - quite empty, was meant to be a 747 & quite a large proportion of the pax refused to board it ), as a small child I was pretty unaware of what was really going on at the time... but a month later on the way home again I definitely picked up on how the entire IT system crashed - massive queues everywhere, massive delays everywhere and our rather intriguing bus couldn't find the aircraft so we had a quite extended tour of the entire ramp! ( and still ended up re-docking with the airport ). I never went back, but I did keep an occasional eye on the place & it appears they never managed to make it work.
Fortunately we got picked up & dropped off & missed the dire transport provisions :p
Why did people refuse to board a 747?
Nobody refused to board a 747 - because it didn't show up, it was a New Zealand DC-10 in dire need of a wash.
Amazing video as always
Thank you ! amazing content. I always wondered about it.
This was fun to learn. I'd always heard about this Mirabel airport when I was growing up but only ever knew the Dorval one
You could do a whole series on Quebec and it's missteps. The Big O, Jarry park, the Isle aux Tourtes bridge, the list goes on, check it out.
youtube doesn't have enough hard drive space to complete that series
this is very true but wait a sec... what's wrong with Parc Jarry?
Typical Toronto. 😊
Major construction project in Montreal during the 1970's ?
- *Sopranos theme starts to play* -
Airport are a Federal responsiblity . not provincial . Mirabel is a project of Trudeau . Québec Bashing is still ROC national sport .
Airlines did not shift to Dorval. They were forced to go to Dorval, including Air Transat that had its HQ, maintenance facilities and flighst at Mirabel and was able to operate at lower cost base than rival Air Canada. Guess who lobbyied to have Mirabel Closed? Air Canada. It could repatriate it handful of overseas flights left here into one airport, but more importantly have conrol of gates at Dorval (as largest user) and make life as misrable as possibel for its competitors and increase their cost base and reduce on-time performamce.
The justification for demolishing building? costs. ADM purposefully kept heating/air conditioning on 24/7 despite building closed and eventuallt stopped renting it for movie sets and parties so they could show 0 revenues and high cost of maintenance.
You know it's a juicy topic for a video when Simon's voice jumps an octave or two. This one got at least a half-dozen enthusiastic squeaks.
Canada's National Research Council operated an outdoor turbine-engine test facility at Mirabel in the mid-late 2000s... the GE GENx engine was winter-tested there. Pratt & Whitney now operate a similar but much larger facility at the airport.
This saga had an impact on my familly back then.
Thank you for that video. A point that was missed though is that the also abandonned the construction of highway 13, forcing traffic to make a detour by the already overloaded highway 15.
Highway 13 was meant to be a straight line to Montreal and have the train run along it. It would have made the transit to montreal a breeze.
Dorval is another disaster itself... This airport is overcrowded and stuck in the middle of a dense population area.
Thanks, I always wondered why highway 13 was a thing, especially that it cuts through highway 40 and reaches Highway 20 and to the north a sudden stop at Boisbriand to cross 15...Very interesting. Merci
@@moearfa For many years, the highways 13 / 640 junction looked like a "launching ramp"! The h13 overpass was never completed and it ended abruptly in mid-air. There was a "temporary" ramp to access highway 640 that ended-up being used for decades before they rebuilt the highway interchange in the early 2010's...
If you look at google maps, you can go back as far as 2009 and you can see the building site... I could not see the unfinished "launching ramp" though, it was already dismantled when google map took the pictures.
My 1976 high school trip to Paris had us changing planes at Mirabel. I didn't see much of it though since our arriving flight had been delayed at Ottawa. They held the Paris flight at Mirabel for us. We landed, ran through the cavernous terminal from one gate to another, and boarded the Paris flight. In hindsight it's a wonder that our checked baggage made it to Paris with us.
The whole Edmonton to Paris journey was awkward... Edmonton to Toronto (on an Air Canada Lockheed L1011 no less), change planes for Toronto to Mirabel with stop in Ottawa, and then change again for Mirabel to Paris. And the delay in Ottawa? It took 20 minutes or more to round up umbrellas so the Ottawa passengers could exit the plane in the rain!
Flying in the 1970s... don't you just miss it!
My first overseas flight in 1988 was a perfect example of Canadian air travel ineptitude: Winnipeg to Ottawa, where we sat while some people got on and off, some of them only to smoke (smoking allowed on international flights, but not domestic ones); then on to Dorval, but 30 minutes late. Air Canada seemed to think scheduling 90 minutes to get to Mirabel was more than enough (...at rush hour, in January). So obviously, being already late, the bus was not an option. So it was everyone sharing taxis at their own expense. Made it to Mirabel in time to get on the last mobile lounge (those were admittedly pretty cool). And then sat on the tarmac for an hour while AC eventually got around to fuelling the plane. The flight on to Heathrow/CDG was one big smoky, booze filled party with some French businessmen, so that part was good!
I used to like driving to Mirabel from Ottawa for down south winter vacations. They were quite cheap and the countryside drive was pleasant
Another problem with Mirabel that put it at disadvantage was that instead of jetways passengers boarded and disembarked the planes via the Passenger Transfer Vehicles, like those used at Washington-Dulles Airport. These PTVs carried only a few dozen passengers, so imagine, even with multiple PTVs running, how long it would take to disembark a fully loaded 747. It could take almost an hour just to get off the plane. And you had an over an hour ride into the city. Later, a few jetways were added, but far too few, and far too late.
The ptvs carry way more than a few dozen lol. Dorval still uses them during really peak times (weekend morning flights to the Carribean in the winter especially) and I took one last year. 2 PTVs to fill up a 180 seat 737
interesting, considering I disembarked multiple times from larger planes (including 747s) and it never took me anywhere close to an hour to disembark. No, I wasn't travelling in business class, and I travelled through Mirabel for quite a few years.
@@lindaa9005 They used PTVs at the old Pan Am Terminal at JFK to serve the remote hardstands. Arriving on a Club Med charter 757 from Martinique and St. Lucia It took me over 30 minutes to get from my seat to the door, and I was sitting about 15 rows from the last row.
@@josephveksenfeld5344 can't speak for your experience, however with 747s and other widebodies multiple PTVs were used as there were multiple points of disembarkation in each aircraft, and each PTV was fairly large. So if a number of PTVs were ready, unless the cabin crew were inefficient or some issue cropped up (door jam, passenger blocking aisle), it was no where near that slow in the majority of times that I disembarked. I'm sure that there were exceptions to the rule.
I HATED those vehicles!
I used to work at Mirabel Internation for a Freight Company and I bloody loved it. A whole International Airport of infrastructure, big roads, tonnes of parking, open space - and nobody using them. I could get from our home in Tremblant to work at Mirabel without touching my brakes for traffic once! Great place to be. Glad it is being regenerated now as YMX Aerocity.
I live in the Province of Québec and have fond memories of Mirabel airport. It was by far the best airport to arrive in at the time, youy could see from the mezzanine people arriving and departing, it was a huge open space, close to a football feild, it was a family event, I remember all aunts and uncles and cousins waiting for family to get there in huge open space waiting area. Unfortunately as you well said the financial descisions caused it's demize. Unfortunately Dorval is not as fun of an airport as was Mirabel, there is so little room for waiting at the arrival in Dorval it is always jammed packed with people. It is an in and out airport. It has the plus of being quick and small enough not to get lost, and is actually quite efficient for it's size, but Mirabel was a more wecoming place where welcome parties could reunite. In Dorval I only go alone to get friends and family when they arrive. it just is not the place for big welcoming parties. I wait in a waiting parking lot and when the people arrive I just go get them at the outside door. I mean it is ok, I can't complain. Your video is very well documented. Thanks
Mirabel was always considered to be a white elephant. The other quirk was that you took a bus to the aircraft from the gate. The bus was able to lift to the required aircraft height so you never went outside. The stupidity was they only published aircraft departure times not the departure of the last bus. Many people missed their flight as a result.
At 01:28, the image with "Dorval Airport" caption that lasts very short time is technically part of Dorval airport complex but not the airport itself. Just above the word "Dorval" is the Air Canada head office. To its right is a hangar that used to belong to Air Canada . on its left is former Air Canada engine maintenance building (sold off to Rolls Royce and then to Lockheed martin). The square office buioding furher up is the current head office for what is left of Bombardier . and the long line of hangars was the former production line for the CRJ-200s with only prtions neededf to make the Challenger business jet (one of 2 prodcts left of Bombardier).
If I recall correctly, that area was once Canadair and later became a Bombardier facility.
Canadair was at Cartierville airport, bounded in north by Henri Bourassa, and in east by what is now Marcel Laurin. What is left of Bombardier still has 1 building left on Marcel Laurin. But allong it and Henri Bourassa were the Canadair production facilities. The field between 24L and 24R at airport was empty except for AC hangars and its engine maintenance facility. When CRJ200 picked up sales, Bombardier moved production from Carierville to Dorval airport. Eventually Cartierville airport clsoed and became residential developments with that 1 building left. @@alsnow3582
Reminded me of Gander Newfoundland. For quite a while it was a hub that made trans Atlantic flight possible. Once the range of air planes got "long enough" Gander was no longer needed for international flight. There are other cities that have multiple air ports, I wonder how well they work.
I used to fly out of Mirabel airport in 2018 to my remote work site with Nolinor. The place always looked like a failed vision but it’s cool to see attention given to it!
Do a piece on California's high speed rail from no where to no where!!! this makes Mirabel airport look efficient!
The decrease in air traffic might also partly have something to do Bill 101, the Charter of the French Language (1977), which caused many large employers to move to Ontario (so a lot less business travel).
The Quebec government has a real knack for shooting itself in the foot
I love that you covered this airport
I love it when Simon covers my city's failures :)
I actually spent a good chunk of my childhood there as I was flying to Europe every summer break. Quite liked it, but it was indeed FAAAAAR. Dorval, now the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Airport, is so much better situated. Note: the sharp drop in our city's popularity in the 80s and 90s due to the insane (and still ongoing) language politics didn't help either. Montreal was, until the late 70s, the number one city in Canada. But our politicians did a great job driving away all our business to Toronto. Thankfully, as you stated, Mirabel airport is now a pretty big cargo transport hub. It's also home to quite a few aviation companies and manufacturers, including the former Bombardier, now Airbus plant that makes the majority of A220s.
Dorval Airport land was not expanded as a result of Mirabel's closure. same runways, same taxiways. The terminal complex itself had to demolish half a sateite pier and the terminal was expanded west to build a bigger international pier and US terminal. The later was gauged to be urgent enough, but caused ADM to run out of money circa 2003-2004 and half built project remained idle for a few years before being completed. As a result of it, Dorval lost all cargo, customs, postal and maintenance hangars (for smaller airlines), What is left of cargo was moved to north side of airport and iaccessibel from the airport itself. Right now, the airport started another white elephant project to cover part of airport in a giant gass dome and demolished part of elevated parking lot where the new trasit station (REM) is being built (yes, the station will not be connected to terminal despite tunnel passing right under it). COVID sent ADM's finances back to 0 and project for the glass dome was shelved, leaving the half demolished parking lot next to terminal, and half finished replacement parking lost further out (where there used to be hangars).
An issue was the lack of political willing.
The highway 13 was never completed to the airport.
Today, the government is still working on the highway 50.
Then there was a train station below the airport but there was no rails going there. As of today, the train track was never built.
But all this reflects how in Québec the projects go 2 steps forward, 3 steps backward, spin 180 degrees and start again.
I was a young immigrant when I saw this airport in '77. Juvenile me was in awe from what I saw.
Back in the 90's, H.Ross Perot built an airport to compete with DFW and Love Field and Meachem International Airport. Now it's a "commercial" airport, no passengers.
ah, the good old days when only ONE billionaire was considered somewhat of an outlier (I actually liked Perot at the time as he said pulbicly a lot of things that NEEDED to be said).
Not only this airport, all Montreal area is a urban disaster rushed for the Olympics. Born there and out now.
urbane disaster
*Désastre urbaine. Tokébekicitte, sti! ;)
Great video Simon! Mirabel is just one of the many blunders that has scared Quebec When they announced Mirabel Airport and all the ancillary highways and light rail system it made great sense. Then like everything else in Quebec, greed, stupidity on all levels of direction and language laws newly introduced by the provincial government crippled the airport. As you mentioned the Tramm was never realized. Autoroute 13 that was supposed to help alleviate the traffic congestion was never completed. In years since Mirabel has become quite the sprawling suburb and the scars of airport fiasco have helped but have yet to be forgotten.
The same thing almost happened in Toronto with the Pickering Airport. The land was expropriated but construction never started. The public outcry was such that the Federal government cancelled it.
From Wiki, "Plans for an airport were developed during the late 1960s and early 1970s. The 1972 announcement affected properties in Pickering, Uxbridge, and Markham townships in York and Durham Regions. Residents were forced to leave as demolitions of houses and barns began. Preliminary airport construction activity was halted in 1975 when the provincial partner in the enterprise, the Government of Ontario, declared it would not build the roads or sewers needed to service the site. Despite later attempts by the federal government to revive the project, construction activities never resumed, and no operator was selected. There has been local opposition to an airport from the day of the original announcement."
It still could happen… all the land that was expropriated is still in the hands of the Greater Toronto Airport Authority if I’m not mistaken.
The GTAA and the Feds want to build it. The Liberals of Pierre Trudeau brought the plan forward and his son is keeping the dream of Pickering Airport alive. It is ridiculous but this is how our Federal Government rolls .
The only ex-residents were the farmers on the actual lands used by the runways and former airport complex. Essentially between what is now the 50 highway and Sainte Monique /Côte des Saints to the south (though three are farms on Côte des Saints to the border of the tarmac). The rest of the expropriations alow the farmers to stay where they were with hefty bank account from the purchse and paying ridiculously low rent to contiiue living/farming where they were. One friend of the governnent even bought a lot of properties and unused land north of St-Eustache at normal prices and convinced the government of the need to expropriate him.
The airport would have been a brilliant idea had the high speed rail to downtown had been built and Dorval closed as planned.
`Here in Kansas City, they built the new MCI airport in the early 70's, a half-hour's drive north of downtown, and at least an hour for most of the rest of us. It has always been a major hassle to get there and back. Sad thing, just a few years later, they decommissioned Richard Gebaur AFB and turned it into a truck depot. 2 mile long runways thick enough for C-5's to land on. Money is no object for politicians until a project is behind schedule, over-budget, and all the impractical flaws are discovered. Now they want to 'sell' us 3-4 billions worth of new sports stadiums. Trouble is, the people who are most taxed to pay for them, can't afford to attend events held there. Sort of like the Concorde and Brabazon, if you think about it.
Thank you for mentioning the displaced people. This project was a deep wound for a lot of locals. Paul Piché even talked about this in one of his songs (La Gigue à Mitchounano). I'll try to translate from French: "Saint-Scholastique or Park Forillon / We had to leave really soon / Since to the tourists and their airplanes / we are always to much in the way / Folks lost their houses, their lands and their country / And all I could do about that is write a song that won't go further than here".
The west runaway and all of its taxiways have been converted to a racetrack, dragstrip, and drift track! I go there a minimum of once a year to do autocross, but they also host car shows every weekend. It all goes under the name of iCar (except the Autocross). Great times there
That's completely false, icar takes place mostly on a section of the main apron except for the drag strip which uses a section of the India taxiway. The West runway is actually the main and currently only runway in function
Not true the west runway you mean the 11-29 which is simply closed but it’s still a runway. The dragstrip is just north of the 06-24
@@marc-antoinem112 par piste de l'ouest? Je veux dire la seule piste ouverte c'est la 06-24
@@lelequebecois9668 My bad, j'va pas là assez souvent pour être 100% familier avec le layout de la place. J'pensai que c'était le côté ouest qui était devenue la track. Maintenant que vous le mentionnez, j'realize que c'est bien la piste ouest qui est encore opérationnelle
Between this and the disaster that was the Summer Olympics 1976 wasn't a great year for Montreal
1976 was fantastic. I lived it. Then the anglos decided that having french speaking people in charge was not acceptable and moved a lot of head offices to Toronto. Montreal is still a much better place to live.
Denver airport to Denver…. 1-2 days driving…..😂
Yeah, and there's a freeway right through it.
You should take the underground tunnels.
You should take the underground tunnels.
As a child I took a flight departing from Mirabel, The Chateau Aeroport Mirabel with the palm trees and pool is something I'll always remember :)
I flew into Mirabel in the 90's...and yes the bus ride into Montreal was a very very long one...
Between Mirabel and the 1976 Olympics, Montreal and Quebec as a whole, destroyed a lot of goodwill between them and the other provinces, who were asked to assist in paying for both boondoggles in the form of ‘equalization payments’, even though Quebec is one of the ‘have’ provinces. The province continues to this day to request and accept equalization payments to help pay for their short-sighted plans of glory.
I actually worked there for a bit, really nice place! Shame it’s in the middle of nowhere!
And it’s not just cargo and privates, Bell has a training center and Bombardier does some production and development there.
I actually worked on the (former Bombardier C-Series) Airbus A220 there.
I'm born in 1984 and remember going through Mirabel for international flights when I was young, loved watching the flights take off from the huge windows and the futuristic looking transports to board the bigger planes. Didn't know there was such a terrible history behind it, that's crazy!
I found the airport interesting. We flew out & back 4 times to the Caribbean. I was fascinated by the size & layout. The carriers that transported us between the terminal & the planes was innovative. It was inconvenient to take a bus to & from so we could connections but we were young. One trip, we landed at Dorval & took the bus to the hotel at Mirabel. I remember going to watch a baseball game. We had to take the bus to Dorval (1 hour) then take a bus to downtown (45 minutes) to take the Metro (subway) to see the game at the Olympic Stadium (another hour). Then we had to do it in reverse. Our flight out of Mirabel was the following day.
That place is right up there with Olympic Stadium in Montreal, a great example of incompetence and corruption at huge public expense
My best friend is a Montrealer, and he and I both agree other than the obviously large political issues at the time, the location nearer Ontario would have been better for many reasons. Not the least of which Montreal having the chance to integrate more with the rest of us than becoming more insular as they were doing. We see the economic benefit of that closeness and how being able to handle extra flights from 2 provinces would have been a massive boon to both. However, sadly, it is what it is.
Always feels weird when you know Harper did something right. *shudders*
It's creepy, you're right. Even a stopped clock can be right twice a day. That's how best to describe it.
Harper did *many* good things. Trudeau is behind 20% in the latest polls. Perhaps you watch way too much CBC propaganda.
They could have built it in Laval near the 15 or 13/440 crossing. Most of the island was pretty empty at that time and there is many links and bridges to Montreal. Vaudreuil was pretty far away for people coming from the east.
I loved going to this airport and taking flights when I was a kid in the late 70s and 80s. Great airport. Loved the exotic "buses" that transported passengers to the waiting aircraft, the great views from the terminal, the really nice hotel. Just loved it all. And it still makes me rather sad that it never became a success. I still miss it a lot.
Those busses went to Doeval/Trudeau airport. Tom Scott has a video about it.
So close to home on this one 😃 please do a video on the st Lawrence sea way projects. They should make food Forest on the extra land. I all remember passing the airport on the way to saint sauveur on school trips to go tubing and wondering why there was such a huge fed x air port in the middle of nowhere 😐
One might refer to this as an Operation Clusterfuck....
If you think that's bad you should see the fucking Olympic stadium
My first flight experiences as a kid in the 90's were from this airport. The hotel Le Château with its interior courtyard with a pool, restaurants, etc was the coolest thing ever for us. I kinda feel sad that it got out of service, but it's just nostalgia I guess.
No one is mentioning the horrendous boarding system. The planes did not dock directly to the terminal, you had to take a bus! The buses had adjustable height and would shuttle between the terminal and the plane, which would add ~20min to the boarding process.
😂 A Classic Canadian infrastructure project 😂 my municipality built a bus terminal that was too narrow to allow for two busses to pass side by side. Doesn't matter liberal or conservative, federal all the way down to municipal Canada can't seem to do infrastructure well.
Which place?