Mirabel Airport (YMX) Failed...Here's Why
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 2 ต.ค. 2024
- Back with more aviation content! Montreal-Mirabel International Airport was supposed to be a grand project that would connect Montreal to the entire world. In reality it turned out to be a total flop. Mirabel is located 44km outside of the city of Montreal and with no infrastructure already in place to connect Mirabel to Montreal, the aspirations of this project were a pipe dream. In this video, I breakdown the ambitious vision, the construction process, the demand problem, the economic impact and the repurposing of the Mirabel Airport. YMX is still used to this day, but is primarily a cargo and general aviation airport. Airbus also has a base in Mirabel at the airport where a significant amount of A220'S have been produced and tested.
What do you guys think of the Mirabel Airport project? Where should the airport have been built instead? Be sure to start a conversation in the comments section!
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It's a shame, it was an excellently designed facility. But bumbling of major infrastructure projects was a hallmark of the Federal Trudeau and Quebec governments in that era.
I used to work there...Not only was the airport too far from Montreal, but the traffic could be horrendous..Why? well, it was the main route to the ski hills of the Laurentian mountains !! Coming into Montreal, the road passed many other exit points for people who lived on route, Large coaches get snagged in Traffic, very tedious if you have just arrived in Canada ..It was a great idea originally, but the pitfalls were not addressed ..An Underground subway system would have worked very well, but was not even considered... Today, the only Hotel that was built is now sitting forlorn and abandoned... So many memories of meeting my parents ..Sad and disheartend my the whole failure actually.....( I live in Alberta now..)
oh and the word you were looking for in the beginning of the video was : Expropriate
Not a complete failure, its a major cargo hub for FedEx, UPS and Cargojet
Pearson Airport is 34 kilometers from Downtown Toronto.
And it is easily connected to the downtown core with the UP Express train service
@@ApexGeography So would Mirabel have been.
@@essenegnostic8711 - YMX is 55km from Ville-Marie. With the reputation of the infrastructure in this province I have little faith this would have been a success.
@@ApexGeography Transportation system in Montreal sh*ts all over Toronto's.
@@essenegnostic8711 In theory, sure. In practice, no. The amount of times the Metro, REM or Exo systems go down per week is actually insane. I get constant notifications of interruptions.
Bell helicopters are built at Mirabel.
An hour long bus ride from where you want to go
It actually was a nice airport, especially for connections, as there were sure a lot fewer people around. Bruce and Otis
Hum.. the Trudeau government gave Pearson the rights to get international flights that were exclusive to Montreal. They left the domestics flights in dorval smh and they didn’t built the train that would get people in 20 minutes from mirabel to downtown. And they never finish highway 13. 😭
Don't forget there was also supposed to be a 160km/h train going directly from Mirabel to Montreal downtown. The construction never started. The airport was doomed from the start.
@@badouplus1304 yes that train was supposed to do mirabel-downtown in 20 minutes 🥺
I find it very interesting how they were able to re-purpous such a large airport, i wonder what it will be used for in the future.
Yeah it is interesting, indeed. I’m very glad that the Airbus facility has done well there. Although in the coming years I believe most of the new A220’a will be produced and manufactured in Alabama.
An exhibition center could be built @ Mirabel north of the access road . This would stimulate more cargo airlines to serve Mirabel and ultimately low-price airlines. Also in the future several decades off Mirabel Airport could be a port for single-stage to orbit space shuttles if commercial space flight ever becomes reality.
@@ApexGeography
You failed to mention, that in late 70's majority of Canadian business and banking decided to move shop to Toronto. Following political turmoil in Quebec and the efforts of that province to secede from Canada. In essence, Montreal fell from the top as business and money center of the country into a 2nd fiddle provincial town. Such is the reason Mirabel became a cargo airport by mid 1980's.
Other impacts to consider: 1) At the time many other places considered "New" Airports for example Denver, who's airport is about as far away from the city centre but there was no plan for any real connection to the city by transit 2) Up until 1970, Montreal was considered the Airline Gateway to Canada, the largest City in Canada AND the most important commercial centre in the country and that all changed following the FLQ Crisis followed & the election of the PQ drove a very large number of people and business to Toronto, I mean the Bank of f'n MONTREAL is in Toronto & their BMO Tower is a big part of the skyline. This reduced the importance of Montreal as a destination 3) Deregulation meant that Airlines followed the money & the passengers so many carriers from outside Canada started seeing Toronto as their main Canadian focus & dropped or diminished Montreal as a destination 4) I'm a supporter of supporting the French language in all of Canada & Airlines have to service many languages however, French language laws impacted Montreal. For example, if you're say Air Lingus & you feel you need an office in Canada in addition to your flights, are you going to want to add a unilingual French office in Quebec or an English office with a bi-lingual component in Toronto? For these and many other reasons, while Montreal may be Canada's 2nd largest city, it often battles Calgary for the title of 3rd or 4th busiest Airport
Very well said. Denver is a very good comparable, it quite literally is in the middle of nowhere. Luckily it has had success. It is one of the nicest most efficient airports I’ve ever been to.
Thanks for the comment !
Very well said. Denver is a very good comparable, it quite literally is in the middle of nowhere. Luckily it has had success. It is one of the nicest most efficient airports I’ve ever been to.
Thanks for the comment !
@@ApexGeography Yeah, I really like DIA, my only gripe (& one that's true of many airports) is the lack of any over night services. I mean even the vending machines are tucked away & difficult to find! As I say, that's true of most Airports. Although I did note at YYZ for some reason people can get a slice of multi layer "gourmet" cake - fresh from New Jersey from a vending machine
You can also blame the demographic predictions of the time for the Mirabel failure. When the project was planned, natality rates was still quite high following the baby-boom. Montreal area population was supposed to grown up to 10-12 millions by year 2k. With such a demographic growth, it could have been realistic to have Mirabel with appropriate infrastructure to facilitate transits between the airport and Montreal downtown. But the population growth stalled, government revenues did not increased as predicted and therefore, they cancelled many projects that was planned along with Mirabel. Let's not forget the big recession of the 70s and the 80s, not helping the project.
Why is Canada so full of incompetent bureaucrats !? You see it in every side of public and private sector in Canada , the military and their procurement and dei disaster , civil planning ( Calgary green line saga and ongoing water restrictions) not to mention other disastrous planning in other major cities, what a shit show of a country and yet no accountability whatsoever .
Excellent video. I could see YMX being a major hub for future low cost carriers, if again there is proper transportation or shuttle services from downtown Montreal to Mirabel. I could see it being like Hamilton Airport, keep in mind Hamilton is miles from downtown Toronto, let alone Mississauga. But all of his is based on passenger demands.
That is a very interesting point. I never even considered that but I would imagine that it would be far cheaper for low cost carriers to operate out of YMX. They would have to slightly reconfigure things a bit to set it up since they demolished the passenger terminal. Still though, a very intriguing point. I know personally I would take the extra drive up to Mirabel for a significantly cheaper fare.
Thanks for watching and thanks for the comment!
@@ApexGeography coming to this now with the news of the expansion of st Hubert. Makes way more sense. Looking forward to it
Eventually for Commercial spaceflight if a single stage to orbit space shuttle can be developed.
Mirabel is not really so far from the city, compared to some other cases. Denver airport is 25 miles from Denver. Malpensa airport is 31 miles from Milan.
I cherish my memories as cabin crew flying out of YMX. It’s sad that it wasn’t a success due to its distance from downtown Montreal and lack of viable transportation.
The failure was not in the airport but in political blunders and poor management by ADM. Take a trip to Dorval now and see what a nightmare it is. Far too small for the number of aircraft and passengers it has to accommodate. ADM is talking about extending flight hours and residents are complaining about the noise. Exactly back where we were some 50 years ago.
It went from 40kms to 44kms to 50kms 😂
Have you ever been to YHZ or YEG? Both airports are located a very long distance from the cities that they are named for, in separate rural municipalities.
Yup, have been to both many times. Certainly less than ideal in those cities.
it did NOT fail. It was DELIBERATELY KILLED. Here is why : 1. There was no infrastructure already in place to connect Mirabel to Montreal. 2. No real infrastructure was EVER built to connect Mirabel to Montreal. 3. There were plans but the plans were killed by NIMBY politicians. 4. There was NO PLAN for an orderly transition from Dorval to Mirabel. 2 other terminals ( a domestic and a trans-border terminal) should have been built linked by an APM service as in Dallas, but only 1 terminal was built let alone a new hanger area & office for Air Canada, Air Creebec and Air Inuit..The infrastructure needed was 1. A dedicated access highway Montral - Mirabel - Ottawa. 2. a dedicated electrified rail line Montreal-Mirabel-Ottawa. Dorval could have been closed and transformed into a park.
They should have closed down YUL and relocate everything to YMX. They could have improved the links between Montreal and YMX. For example building the train that never existed. There even was a train station in the basement of the only terminal built at YMX.
YUL is surrounded by residential/industrial/commercial zones. It has no way to grow. Imagine all the real estate it could have freed on Montreal island with YUL's closure.
Thank God they didn't! Misrable was a disaster!
Nice video c est triste que l aéroport de mirabelle na pas survécu mais au moins il y a Airbus qui sont à mirabelle mais bon merci tres bonne video
Merci beaucoup mon ami!
They should have placed it in Brossard which the opposite side of the island of MTL!
It was also proposed that Vaudreuil-Dorion could have been a location. It was rejected due to the proximity to Ontario 🙄
@@ApexGeography Bourassa didn't want it near Ontario.
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