When snow closed London’s airport just before Christmas 2010, officials came to Montreal to find a solution.
From 2011 to 2017, Normand Boivin was responsible for operations at Heathrow Airport, one of the largest airports in the world. One of his biggest “operations” was planning the arrival of hundreds of thousands of people for the 2012 Olympics.
I met him when I got off the plane, and every time I set foot in the sad Montreal airport, I think about what he said to me that day in July, three days before the opening ceremony.
“The airport is a work of emotions,” he told me over a coffee, because everything was planned down to the last detail and he was not nervous at all.
What do you mean, trading emotions?
“People are anxious. Their patience is limited. Before you think about being nice, you should just avoid giving reasons to criticize. No one comes here for the airport. If people forget they are there, that’s okay.”
This is actually pretty obvious, but all people want to do when they arrive at the airport is get out as quickly as possible, one way or another.
And this is exactly where Trudeau Airport displays Olympic-caliber incompetence: We seem to have forgotten the obvious.
Whether you’re getting in to catch a plane or trying to flee after landing, almost everything is more painful, longer, and more annoying than anywhere else.
Remember we are unable to bring enough buses to carry passengers.
Do you want to take a taxi? They are here. They stamp with their feet. Customers are there too, happy to spend $50 or $100 as quickly as possible. But car access trickles down, onto a small section of sidewalk.
I didn’t talk about the congested arrivals road, which took 10 years to build, nor about the luggage that seems to make an endless journey between the plane and the terminal.
But for a very medium-sized international airport, Montreal guarantees one of the worst experiences.
It goes without saying that this is not the “fault” of Airports of Montreal (ADM), and not only.
Air Canada and other airlines did not hire enough staff after the pandemic, although the influx of customers was known.
Transport Quebec has been late in developing access routes, and it continues.
The federal government took control of airports 30 years ago and acts as if they can self-finance.
The Montreal transit company is not good at organizing transportation well, and dares to call this bus line “747” – see the text written by my colleague Philippe Mercure.
Except that ADM’s mission is precisely to make these things happen that are not about it. To manage details.
When I hear ADM spokesperson Paul Arcand (not even the president) say he is “shocked” by the situation, I feel like saying: How can we be surprised? It’s not as if this influx is unpredictable, just as sudden as a flood: people are buying their tickets well in advance.
And what exactly do you do to solve this problem, other than denouncing the situation that is other people’s fault? Are we waiting for REM with our fingers crossed? We look carefully at the calendar and say to ourselves: Summer is over, will autumn be calm?
When I met Normand Boivin in London, he told me that he had personally summoned three ministers (Transport, Public Security, and Sport) from the British government to “get them moving” before the Olympics.
Photo by George Archer, Special Collaboration Archive
Normand Boivin, former chief operating officer at Heathrow Airport
However, he was only a foreigner, number two at the airport. But he got his message across.
I told them: What do we do if the airspace is crowded? we [Heathrow] It is a private company, but we provide an outstanding public service, serving the country’s economy. They interacted. Politicians here are no different from our politicians! »
It can be transferred word for word to the situation in Montreal. The airport is not just a showcase, it is a critical economic infrastructure.
Right now, in terms of access, this airport is probably, yes, the worst in the world.
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