At the back of the pack: Montreal-Trudeau Airport does not satisfy its passengers

Montreal-Trudeau Airport is not among the top North American airports that are highly praised by travelers, ranking at the bottom of a ranking compiled by American firm JD Power.

According to a report published this week, the city's international airport ranks 26th out of 27 North American airports in its category, meaning those that welcome between 10 million and 33 million passengers each year.

In the same ranking, two other Canadian international airports, Vancouver and Calgary, are ranked 15th and 23rd respectively.

To conduct its study, JD Power surveyed passengers on fluidity, terminal, staffing, customer experience at departure, restaurants, confidence level and services offered on arrival.

“It is important to mention that JD Power is a private company, so we have little information about the detailed methodology because you have to pay to get this information”, says Yves Beauchamp, president and CEO of Aéroports de Montréal.

According to him, other surveys conducted by companies and the Skytrax firm indicate that the airport is not last on the list, but 8th in North America.

An airport under construction?

However, Mr. Beauchamp noted that there are “still access difficulties” at Montreal-Trudeau and that they will not be resolved as he expects major work over the next four years to improve passenger reception.

Some of these goals taken by the CEO include tripling the reception capacity at the entrance landing stages, improving the baggage system and building a remote terminal.

“Even then, we think there will still be barriers and dissatisfaction,” he said.

Mr. Beauchamp recalled.

“When we compare ourselves to American airports, they had several billion dollars of government aid during the pandemic, so they were able to take advantage of this period to do important work, which we couldn't do here,” he noted.

The JD Power survey surveyed 26,290 Canadian and US residents who traveled through a North American airport at least once in the 30 days prior to the survey, which was conducted from August 2023 to July 2024.