Montreal airport CEO unveils $4-billion plan to boost capacity, reduce congestion

MONTREAL — The authority overseeing the Montreal airport plans to spend nearly $4 billion in a bid to reduce congestion and ramp up capacity at the country’s second-biggest flight hub.

The announcement Thursday comes after rising passenger volumes and surging car traffic last summer prompted a wave of frustration among travellers trying to make their planes on time.

Gridlock on the road leading to Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport last year routinely prompted car passengers to exit their vehicles and haul their bags along the highway offramp to the airport.

The blueprint for the airport upgrades includes an expanded roadway running past the main entrance, new parking lots and drop-off areas, a satellite terminal and a connection to the REM commuter rail line.

In a speech to the Chamber of Commerce of Metropolitan Montreal, Aéroports de Montréal CEO Yves Beauchamp said Thursday it aims to complete the projects by 2028.

“We are engaged in a race.

We have four years to be able to welcome four million more people than today,” he told attendees in French at a downtown hotel.

“We need to add capacity to our welcome infrastructure, both on the land side and on the air side.”

Travel has rebounded after the pandemic nosedive, with a record 21 million travellers passing through the Montreal airport last year, up 32 per cent from 2022. “After a forced break of two years, we are back on the growth curve from before,” Beauchamp said.

The CEO said he was in favour of opening the floodgates to private capital once the work is done in order to finance more construction under consideration for 2035. The additional investments would cost another $3 billion to $4 billion, Beauchamp told reporters.

“New financial tools will be necessary,” he said.

The chamber of commerce has put pressure on the federal government to increase airports’ financial flexibility.

“If we are not able to change the way airports finance themselves, we will eventually hit a wall,” CEO Michel Leblanc said.