Montréal-Mirabel International Airport
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| Montréal-Mirabel International Airport Aéroport international Montréal-Mirabel Montréal International (Mirabel) Airport[1] |
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| IATA: YMX - ICAO: CYMX | |||
| Summary | |||
| Airport type | Public | ||
| Operator | Aéroports de Montréal | ||
| Serves | Montreal | ||
| Elevation AMSL | 270 ft (82 m) | ||
| Coordinates | |||
| Runways | |||
| Direction | Length | Surface | |
| ft | m | ||
| 06/24 | 12,000 | 3,658 | Concrete |
| Statistics (2006) | |||
| Aircraft Movements | 29,706[2] | ||
Montréal-Mirabel International Airport, (or Montréal International (Mirabel) Airport) (IATA: YMX, ICAO: CYMX) originally called Montreal International Airport and widely known simply as Mirabel, is a large airport located in Mirabel, Quebec, near Montreal and was opened 4 October 1975. The airport now serves only cargo flights, and is a manufacturing base of Bombardier Aerospace, where final assembly of regional jets (CRJ700 and CRJ900) aircraft is conducted. It is the second largest airport in the world in terms of area (392 km²).
Despite being intended to become the eastern air gateway to Canada, the airport's location and lack of transport links, as well as Montreal's economic decline relative to Toronto, made it unpopular with airlines. Eventually it was relegated to the simple role of a cargo airport. The airport, initially a source of pride, eventually became an embarrassment widely regarded in Canada as being a boondoggle and a white elephant.
It was planned to handle 50 million passengers a year though the actual constructed facilities are capable of far less than that. Technically speaking, it is still the only airport in Canada planned to accommodate those numbers. Toronto-Pearson however, is slowly on its way to surpassing it.[citation needed]
Contents |
[edit] History
[edit] Development
The 1960s saw Montreal experience a tremendous economic boom. Massive construction projects, including the Montreal Metro coupled with the hosting of Expo 67 brought the city international status. More and more visitors were arriving to the city, especially by airplane, though not always by choice. The federal government required that European airlines make Montreal their only Canadian destination. This resulted in 15-20% annual growth in passenger traffic at the city's Dorval airport. Optimistic about the city's future and its continuing ability to attract more and more visitors, government officials decided to build a new airport that would be more than able to absorb increased passenger traffic well into the 21st century.
The Canadian Ministry of Transport studied five possible sites for Montreal's new airport: St-Jean sur Richelieu (50km to the southeast), Vaudreuil (40km to the west ), Joliette (70km to the north), St-Amable (30km to the northeast), and St. Scholastique (60km to the northwest). In March 1969, the St. Scholastique site was chosen, and proposals were drawn up to expropriate 97,000 acres (392 km²), an area larger than the entire island of Montreal.
The Quebec government preferred that the new airport be situated in Drummondville (100km to the east), while the federal government imagined that it should be located west of the island. A federal-provincial compromise moved the airport north to its existing location, where it is served only by a long road link via Autoroutes 15 and Autoroute 50. An additional link via Autoroute 13 was planned but never completed. Also planned but not finished was the connection of Autoroute 50 to the Ottawa/Gatineau area.
High speed rail transit (the system was to be capable of speeds from 60 to 75 mph (100 to 120 km/h) for the Montreal-Mirabel run), initially to be called TRRAMM (Transport Rapide Régional Aéroportuaire Montréal-Mirabel), was intended to be completed at a later date. However, it never got beyond the drawing board. The TRRAMM system was also intended to eventually be expanded to other parts of the Montreal region. The major stumbling block for the TRRAMM project was funding. The federal, provincial, and municipal governments never managed to find enough cash to fund the highly ambitious and expensive rapid transit project. Thus, Mirabel was forced to cope with an inadequate road system and non-existent rail transit, supplemented only by express buses run by Montreal Transit Corporation.
The federal government expropriation resulted in making Mirabel the world's largest airport by property area. It attracted the ire of local residents who were forced to move. The airport's operations zone, which encompassed what was eventually built plus expansion room, amounted to only 17,000 acres (69 km²), or about 19% of the total area of the airport. The federal government planned to use the excess land as a noise buffer and as an industrial development zone that was never started. The people of St. Scholastique protested vehemently against the expropriation of their land. Nevertheless, construction started in June 1970 under the auspices of BANAIM, a government organization formed to build the airport.
Montreal International Airport opened for business on October 4, 1975, in time for the 1976 Summer Olympics. In the rush to get the airport open in time for the Olympics, it was decided to transfer flights to Mirabel in two stages. International flights would be transferred immediately, while domestic and transborder flights would continue to be served by Dorval airport until 1982.
[edit] Later years
After 1976, the airport began to decline in importance due to the increasing use in the 1980s of longer-range jets that did not need to refuel in Montreal before crossing the Atlantic. This trend, commenced during the airport's planning stages, coupled with Montreal's decline as Canada's premiere business centre, dramatically reduced the amount of projected air traffic into Dorval. The result was that a second airport was no longer needed. To ensure the airport's survival, all international flights for Montreal were banned from Dorval for many years. This created resentment among Montrealers who were forced to travel far out of town for their flights, and to take long bus rides for connections from domestic to international flights. Many international airlines, faced with the stark economic reality of operating two Canadian points of entry, opted to overfly Montreal and land in Toronto instead with its better domestic and US connections.
The government predicted that Dorval would be completely saturated by 1985 as part of its justification for building Mirabel. The federal government further claimed that 20 million passengers would be passing through Montreal's airports annually, with 17 million through Mirabel. That claim never materialized, for by 1991 Mirabel and Dorval handled a total of 8 million passengers and 112,000 tons of cargo annually, while Toronto was handling 18.5 million passengers and 312,000 tons of cargo. Mirabel alone never managed to exceed 3 million passengers per year in its existence as a passenger airport. No legislation similar to the Wright Amendment was enacted that would force airlines to use Mirabel instead of Dorval. Mirabel had the capacity to be expanded significantly to meeting growing demand, unlike Dorval. Nevertheless, an existing active Dorval made Mirabel an unattractive and expensive alternative to travellers and airlines. The continuing existence of Dorval also meant forgoing a profit that could have been made from redeveloping the prime real-estate that is currently occupied by the airport. Combined with Montreal's decline in comparison with Toronto and the failure of passenger numbers to grow at the rates expected, Mirabel became a pariah airport in Canada, with only Air Transat holding out until the very end.
One main complaint people have about Mirabel Airport is that it is located too far away from Montreal's core. The main reason as to why the airport was chosen to be located so far away from the city was so that airplanes taking-off and landing would not need to fly over urban area and create noise pollution for city-dwellers. However, as the years went by, and newer airplanes became quieter and quieter, having airports located so far from the city-centre no longer became a necessity. In fact, inner city airports such as Dallas Love Field and Chicago Midway Airport are examples of successful inner-city airports that live with city-dwellers around them.
Today, Montréal-Mirabel International Airport is used exclusively for cargo flights, with passenger operations having ceased on October 31, 2004, twenty-nine years after the airport's opening and many years of limited, primarily charter service. Bombardier Aerospace launches newly constructed units from its factory at Mirabel.
With very little or, later, no airline service, and with many empty spaces inside its terminal, Mirabel has been the setting of several movies, TV series and commercials for many years. The movie 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 reflection). All other terminal scenes were shot elsewhere.
In 2006, I-Parks Creative Industries, a French firm that specializes in the creation of urban tourist attractions, and Oger International SA, the global engineering company owned by the family of slain former Lebanese prime minister and entrepreneur Rafik Hariri, entered into an agreement to turn Mirabel into a theme park. The proposed concept of the park is based on the theme of water and outer space.
In December 2006, in a move he called "correcting a historical injustice," Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced the return of 4,450 hectares of farmland expropriated to build Mirabel airport. About 125 farmers, who rent their land from the federal government, were permitted to buy it back. Harper said he was pleased to finish the work started by former prime minister, Brian Mulroney, who unlocked a major parcel of expropriated land during his first term in office in 1985.
[edit] Architecture and layout
Mirabel was designed to be eventually expanded to six runways as well as six terminal buildings. The expansion was supposed to occur in a number of phases and be completed by 2025. However, the airport never got beyond the first phase of construction, and by October 2005 runway 11/29 was closed leaving only runway 06/24 operational.
From the furthest reach of the parking lot to the airplane seat, one can walk as little as 200 meters. A train station was also built in the basement for the planned TRRAMM service, right below the main passenger concourse. Today, it is used as an employee parking lot.
Designed by architects Papineau-Gérin-Lajoie, Mirabel's terminal carried over their creator's award-winning Expo 67 Québec pavilion design. A simple minimalist dark glass box sitting on top of a concrete bunker housing maintenance services, the terminal was hailed as an architectural triumph when it first opened. The first and only terminal was designed to handle six million passengers per year.
Passengers walked as little as 100 meters going from the curb to the gate. Once there, passengers would be transported to their aircraft by Passenger Transfer Vehicles (PTVs), rather than walking through jetways. The PTVs, similar to those at Washington Dulles International Airport, ran from the terminal to the aircraft parking spot on the tarmac. It was reported by Radio-Canada/CBC that each of these vehicles had cost up to 400,000 Canadian Dollars at the time. To eventually make connections between flights easier, the terminal also included a few jetways, in a smaller concourse called the Aeroquay, accessible via an underground tunnel and later connected directly to the main concourse.
[edit] Airlines and destinations
Mirabel initially opened with service from local airlines Air Canada, CP Air and Quebecair, as well as airlines from more than fifteen countries, including Aer Lingus, Aeroflot, Air France, Alitalia, British Airways, CSA, El Al, Iberia, KLM, Lufthansa, Olympic Airways, Sabena, SAS, Swissair and TAP. These airlines had their national country flags posted in front of the terminal on the inauguration of Mirabel.
Other airlines to have flown to Mirabel at some point were Aerolineas Argentinas, AeroMexico, Air India, Cubana de Aviación, Finnair, Jaro International, JAT, LOT, People Express, Royal Air Maroc, Tarom, and Varig. Most gradually lost faith in Mirabel and either transferred to Dorval in 1997 or pulled out of Montreal altogether.
Several charter airlines also served Mirabel, such as Wardair, Nationair, Canada 3000 and Royal Aviation. All four have either merged or gone out of business. Air Transat is the only charter airline that started operations at Mirabel and stayed until the end of passenger service in 2004.
Today, the only transport users of Mirabel are cargo airlines, which include:
- Air Georgian (Moncton, Quebec City)
- All Canada Express
- Cargojet Airways (Hamilton, Winnipeg)
- FedEx Express (Indianapolis, Memphis)
- Morningstar Air Express (Moncton, Quebec City, Toronto-Pearson)
- Kelowna Flightcraft (Moncton, Ottawa, Winnipeg)
- Skylink Aviation (Quebec City)
- Tarom Cargo (Bucharest)
- UPS (Louisville)
- DHL
- Nolinor Aviation
[edit] Incidents and accidents
The following accidents occurred either at the airport, or involved aircraft using the airport:
- June 23, 1985: Air India Flight 182, a Boeing 747-100 enroute from Mirabel to London Heathrow Airport was blown up by a terrorist bomb off the coast of Ireland, killing 307 passengers and 22 crew.
- January 21, 1995: Royal Air Maroc Flight 205, a Boeing 747-400 preparing to depart for New York and Casablanca, was being deiced by Canadian Airlines ground staff, while its engines were running. Due to a communications error, the pilot believed deicing was complete and started taxiing forward. Two deicing vehicles that were still in place in front of both horizontal stabilizers were knocked down, causing a fatal freefall for three deicing crew members and serious injuries to the two drivers.[6]
- June 18, 1998: Propair Flight 420, a Fairchild Swearingen Metroliner flying from Dorval International Airport (now Trudeau International Airport) to Peterborough, Ontario, experienced an engine fire and controlling problems during the initial climb. It attempted an emergency landing at Mirabel, but crashed near the beginning of the runway, in part due to a landing gear failure. The two pilots and the nine passengers onboard were killed.[7]
- On October 23, 2003, an El Al Boeing 767 flying from Tel Aviv to Los Angeles via Toronto was diverted to Mirabel International Airport and then on to Hamilton Airport, where RCMP tactical teams were ready. The diversion was the result of a "severe security threat", which was later clarified as a possible surface-to-air missile attack on the aircraft upon landing in Toronto.
[edit] Notes
- ↑ King Fahd International Airport in Saudi Arabia later surpassed Mirabel as the world's largest airport by property area. The Saudi airport still retains this record.
- ↑ Mirabel looks for new role–again (28 April 2004). CBC News. Accessed September 22, 2005.
- ↑ Airport to be turned into amusement park (21 February 2006). CTV News. Accessed March 25, 2006.
- ↑ Delean, Paul (22 February 2006). Mirabel may take off as theme park. The Montreal Gazette.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Canada Flight Supplement. Effective 0901Z 15 March 2007 to 0901Z 10 May 2007.
- ^ Transport Canada TP 1496 - Preliminary aircraft statistics 2006
- Financial Times of Canada. (1975). Mirabel. Special ed. Don Mills, ON: Financial Times of Canada.
- Durivage, Simon."Mirabel, airport of the year 2000." Montreal, Montreal. 8 Sep 1992. Video Archive.
- Sergio Ortega (December 1999). Mirabel: The Airport where the Future is Past. AirOdyssey.net.
[edit] External links
- Aéroports de Montréal
- Page about Mirabel Airport in the Canadian Owners & Pilots Association Places to Fly Airport Directory
- The airport whose demise was caused by rail absence a critique of the Mirabel Airport
| Airports in Canada | |
|---|---|
| National Airports System: | Calgary • Charlottetown • Edmonton • Fredericton • Gander • Halifax • Iqaluit • Kelowna • London • Moncton • Montréal-Mirabel • Montréal-Trudeau • Ottawa • Prince George • Québec • Regina • Saint John • St. John's • Saskatoon • Thunder Bay • Toronto • Vancouver • Victoria • Waterloo • Whitehorse • Winnipeg • Yellowknife |
| By province/territory | BC • AB • SK • MB • ON • QC • NB • NS • PEI • NL • YU • NT • NU |
| Montreal landmarks | |
|---|---|
| Buildings | Biodome | Biosphère | Bell Centre | Canadian Centre for Architecture | Montreal Casino | Complexe Desjardins | Montreal Forum | Grande Bibliothèque du Québec | Habitat '67 | Mary, Queen of the World Cathedral | McCord Museum | Montreal Science Centre | Notre-Dame de Montréal Basilica | Olympic Stadium | Palais des congrès de Montréal | Place des Arts | Place Ville-Marie | Redpath Museum | Saint Joseph's Oratory | Tour de la Bourse | Underground City | World Trade Centre Montreal |
| Neighbourhoods | Chinatown | Old Montreal | Old Port | Quartier international de Montréal |
| Nature and Parks |
Jardin botanique de Montréal | Mount Royal |
| Islands | Île Bizard | Island of Montreal | Île Notre-Dame | Nuns' Island | Saint Helen's Island |
| Transportation | Montréal-Mirabel International Airport | Montreal Metro | Montréal-Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport | Windsor Station | Central Station |
