Montreal's Mirabel Airport: A Disaster from Start to Finish

Comments · 1.4K

• ME

  @megaprojects9649 · 2 years ago · pinned

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• CR

  @craigVA3YBW · 2 years ago

  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.

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• BR

  @bradlevantis913 · 2 years ago

  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.

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• WA

  @waylandchau9431 · 2 years ago

  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. &nbsp;They should slapped his name on Mirabel instead!!! 😉

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• JA

  @Jaeger62 · 2 years ago

  &quot;If the traffic was good&quot;<br><br>Anyway who&apos;s from or been in Montréal can tell you that this is a gigantic and utopic &quot;if&quot;

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• GU

  @guspaz · 2 years ago

  The greatest irony? Dorval now handles the same 20 million passenger traffic volume that caused them to build Mirabel. Turns out we didn&apos;t need a new airport to handle the volume.

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• BE

  @BearG3 · 2 years ago

  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

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• TO

  @toybarons · 2 years ago

  I grew up in Montreal during the 1970s. There was another factor for the reason of Mirabel too that I&apos;m surprised wasn&apos;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&apos;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&apos;t be an issue because the TRRAMM would also be built, super speed rail that would &nbsp;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.

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• LE

  @lewispaine4589 · 2 years ago

  That place is right up there with Olympic Stadium in Montreal, a great example of incompetence and corruption at huge public expense

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• 1T

  @1TDH3 · 2 years ago

  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.

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• DI

  @discovader9460 · 2 years ago

  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&apos;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&apos;t afford a high speed rail shuttle it just became untenable.

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• CD

  @cdpond · 2 years ago

  I remember catching a flight to Finland from Mirabel back in &apos;86&apos;. 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&apos;m sure the overall goal of the terminal&apos;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.

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