Aéroports de Montréal CEO seeks loan to help fund REM link

The CEO of Aéroports de Montréal (ADM) is asking the federal and provincial governments to provide a “financial link” that will allow it to continue work on a $2.5-billion high-speed rail link (REM) to Trudeau airport.

In an open letter posted on Thursday, ADM chief Philippe Rainville points out that while the airport’s fortunes were riding high prior to the COVID-19 outbreak, those fortunes have now fallen so drastically that “our revenues are virtually non-existent.”

“We are proposing to the governments that a loan with flexible repayment terms, based on the restoration of our revenues, be granted to us,” he wrote.

Noting that the Trudeau airport rail station is “the only one of the 26 REM stations that is not part of the funding agreement between the Caisse de dépôt and its partners,” Rainville wrote that while the rail link project had been undertaken when the airport had been “experiencing one of the highest passenger traffic growth rates in North America,” the pandemic had now placed the transportation hub in a very different situation.

“Excluding repatriation flights for Canadians in March and April, domestic flights, and a few passengers who are travelling for essential reasons, activity has plunged by 97 per cent,” he wrote, adding that “unlike the situation in most countries in the world, Canada’s major airports do not receive any government subsidies.”

Rainville wrote that he will propose obtaining government loans at ADM’S next annual meeting, ending his letter by saying, “Such an important project must not get lost somewhere between the levels of government.”