Porter Airlines starts flights at Montreal Metropolitan Airport

Montreal Metropolitan Airport opened its new terminal in Saint-Hubert on Monday and began its first commercial flights, restoring scheduled service to the site for the first time since 1940. Porter Airlines and Pascan Aviation started operating from the 21,000-square-metre facility, which is being positioned as a second commercial air travel hub for Greater Montreal.

The terminal is designed for up to four million passengers a year and is meant to improve access for more than three million Quebecers in Montreal, Montérégie and the Eastern Townships. It has nine gates, 900 seats and two baggage carousels, with 30 flights daily and up to 12 destinations initially available.

Saint-Hubert terminal opening

The airport originally opened in 1927, making it Canada’s oldest. Commercial flights were transferred to Dorval in 1940, and the new opening brings scheduled commercial service back to the airport after about three years of construction that began in August 2023.

The opening also adds an express shuttle service called the METbus, which will connect the Longueuil-Université-de-Sherbrooke métro station with the airport. That gives travelers a direct link to the new terminal on Montreal’s South Shore.

Porter and Pascan flights

Porter Airlines and Pascan Aviation are the first carriers using the terminal, with flights to destinations across Canada. On opening day Monday, Pascan Aviation flight attendants picketed at the airport and accused the airline of refusing to negotiate with the union.

The opening gives Montreal’s South Shore a commercial airport option that has not existed there since 1940, but the first day also showed a labor dispute playing out at the same terminal where service resumed.

Passengers using the new airport now have commercial service, a shuttle link to the métro, and a limited initial network of destinations as the terminal settles into daily operations.