Through this post I am pleased to present to you a historical series of photos via this galleries below about the passengers terminal of Mirabel airport taken 6 years ago, a few weeks before its destruction ... For all aviation lovers it's "End of Era" of the Québec aviation, because Mirabel is a monument to unfinished dreams.
A travers ce post, j'ai le plaisir de vous présenter une série de photos historiques via la galeries ci-dessous sur le terminal passagers de l'aéroport de Mirabel prises il y a 6 ans, quelques semaines avant sa destruction ...
Pour les passionnés d'aviation, c'est la «End of Era» pour l'aviation québécoise car Mirabel est un monument aux rêves inachevés.
Operational history and decline
Montréal–Mirabel 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 were transferred immediately, while domestic and US flights would continue to be served by Dorval airport until 1982.
The federal government predicted that Dorval would be completely saturated by 1985 as part of its justification for building Mirabel. They also projected that 20 million passengers would be passing through Montreal's airports annually, with 17 million of those through Mirabel. However, three factors dramatically reduced the amount of projected air traffic into Dorval.
After 1976, Mirabel and Dorval began to decline in importance because of the increasing use in the 1980s of longer-range jets that did not need to refuel in Montreal before crossing the Atlantic; the use of longer-range aircraft was made more attractive by national energy policies that provided Montreal refineries with feedstock at prices substantially below world prices, starting in 1975 and ending in the 1980s with the drop in world oil prices.
In addition, the simultaneous operation of Mirabel (international flights) and Dorval (continental flights) made Montreal less attractive to international airlines. A European passenger who wanted to travel to another destination in Canada or fly to the United States had to take an hour-long bus ride from Mirabel to Dorval. The complicated transfer process put Montreal at a significant disadvantage. The planned but unbuilt highways and incomplete train routes compounded the problem.
The international airlines responded by shifting their routes to Toronto. One of the obstacles of the planned transfer from Dorval to Mirabel was Air Canada's desire to keep flights in Dorval (and its proximity with AVEOS workshops) and the connections in Pearson Airport.
By 1991, Mirabel and Dorval were handling only 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. It soon became apparent that Montreal did not need a second airport.
To ensure Mirabel's survival, all international flights for Montreal were banned from Dorval from 1975 to 1997. However, public pressure in support of Dorval prevented its planned closure. As a result, Dorval's continued existence made Mirabel comparatively expensive and unattractive to airlines and travellers alike. While Dorval was only 20 minutes away from the city core, it took 50 minutes to get to Mirabel even in ideal traffic conditions. Passengers who used Montreal in transit had to take long bus rides for connections from domestic to international flights, and Montrealers grew to resent Mirabel as they were forced to travel far out of town for international flights.
Many international airlines, faced with the stark economic reality of operating two Canadian points of entry, opted to bypass Montreal altogether by landing instead in Toronto with its better domestic and American connections. The simultaneous operating of both Montreal airports resulted in Dorval being overtaken in traffic first by Toronto, then Vancouver and finally relegated to fourth by Calgary, as international airlines were slow to return to Dorval after it resumed handling international flights in 1997.
Only Air Transat held out at Mirabel until the very end, operating the last commercial flight which departed to Paris on October 31, 2004.
Over time, the decreasing passenger flights began to take a toll on businesses within Mirabel. Particularly notable was the 354-room Chateau Aeroport-Mirabel hotel adjacent to the terminal, which was forced to shut down in 2002 after 25 years of operation.
Debate ; Demolition of terminal building
In the late 1990s, Maclean's magazine interviewed one resident, whose farm was expropriated, who said that his land was sacrificed to save the city. He was particularly critical of the Trudeau government for not closing Dorval as well as failing to recognize Mirabel's potential, as no legislation similar to the Wright Amendment in the United States was enacted that would force airlines to use Mirabel instead of Dorval.
Supporters of making Mirabel the sole international airport of Montreal pointed out that it had the capacity to be expanded significantly to meeting growing future demand, unlike Dorval. They also noted that Dorval could be closed and its land be developed for prime real estate, and some of the profits could go towards improving access routes to Mirabel and/or the airport itself.
The initial location of Mirabel was supposed to be a major justification for the project not only because of its expansion room but also the afforded buffer, which would significantly reduce noise pollution in urban areas.
On May 1, 2014, Aeroports de Montréal confirmed that Mirabel Airport's terminal building would be demolished, citing its high maintenance cost as a reason, as well as its facilities being unfit for commercial aviation needs and lacking any economic viability. Several reports suggested that it would simply be less expensive to rebuild a new terminal if passenger service ever returned to Mirabel. Hypothetically, this could make sense if a smaller budget terminal were to be built, which could attract the interests of ultra low cost carriers like Flair Airlines, Swoop, and others, though there are currently no plans for reinstating passenger service at this time.
A demolition contract was awarded to Delsan on September 16, 2014, beginning the process of demolition of the terminal building and surrounding parking structures (the fate of the adjacent derelict Chateau Aeroport hotel remains unknown). Demolition costs were estimated up to $15 million and to take approximately one year to complete. Demolition of the terminal building began in mid-November 2014 and was completed in August 2016.
Développement, Expropriation, Inauguration et Déclin
À la fin des années 1960, l'augmentation du trafic aérien incite le gouvernement fédéral canadien à construire un nouvel aéroport pour délester l'aéroport de Dorval, en banlieue ouest de Montréal, qui devenait trop petit et surtout entouré de toutes parts dans une zone de plus en plus urbaine.
Le gouvernement Libéral fédéral de Pierre Elliott Trudeau exproprie à bas prix sur un très grand territoire (en fait, dix fois la superficie finalement occupée par l'aéroport et ses dépendances; le développement de tout ce territoire aurait fait de Mirabel le plus grand aéroport au monde) et entame sa construction au début des années 1970. L'inauguration officielle a lieu le 4octobre1975 en présence de nombreux dignitaires dont Pierre Elliott Trudeau, Jean Drapeau et Robert Bourassa8. Construit en un temps record de 5 ans au coût de 500 millions de dollars, il est prêt à temps pour les Jeux olympiques d'été de 1976 à Montréal. Un Boeing 747-200 d'Air Canada est le premier avion à se poser sur la piste pour l'inauguration.
L'aéroport international Montréal-Mirabel est situé à environ 40 km du centre-ville de Montréal. L'architecture de l'aérogare avait été confiée aux architectes Papineau, Gérin-Lajoie, Leblanc. Le terminal aéroportuaire de Mirabel était conçu comme modèle de salle d'attente mobile comme à l'aéroport international de Washington-Dulles, c'est-à-dire avec un autocar transbordeur transportant les passagers de l'aérogare à l'avion.
Le fait de séparer d'une part les vols intérieurs (y compris ceux vers les États-Unis) et d'autre part les vols internationaux, respectivement à Dorval et à Mirabel, rend cet aéroport peu attrayant pour les voyageurs devant transiter entre les deux aéroports pour un même déplacement. D'autre part, faute de construire les infrastructures routières et ferroviaires vers Mirabel ainsi qu'entre Dorval et Mirabel. Le tout a créé des problèmes de correspondances, et l'aéroport de Mirabel a périclité progressivement. Et en 1997, ADM annonce le transfert des vols de passagers vers Pierre-Elliott-Trudeau (YUL).
Le dernier vol passagers a eu lieu le 31octobre2004 ; c'était le vol TS-710 d'Air Transat à destination de Paris. Les compagnies aériennes internationales avaient transféré petit à petit leurs vols passagers vers Toronto et YUL. L'aéroport de Mirabel est aujourd'hui consacré exclusivement au transport de marchandises. L'aéroport international Pierre-Elliott-Trudeau de Montréal est à nouveau le seul aéroport international de passagers de Montréal, grâce à des aménagements supplémentaires.
Le 1er mai 2014, le conseil d’administration des Aéroports de Montréal, jugeant que l'aérogare « est désuète et que son potentiel de récupération à des fins commerciales autres qu’aéroportuaires est quasi nul et économiquement injustifié », décide que celle-ci sera démolie. La démolition ne sera approuvé par la municipalité de Mirabel qu'en octobre après de fortes réticences du milieu.
L'aéroport reste cependant ouvert au trafic cargo et aux activités des constructeurs aéronautiques.