New air facility on South Shore set to become the “Townships airport”
Everyone’s flying everywhere. The phenomenon is so widespread, we scarcely notice it anymore. I am no frequent-flyer, unlike members of my broader family who jet away somewhere every month or even sometimes every week: to Vancouver, Florida, London, Bangladesh, Thailand, you name it.
But I do fly somewhere about twice a year, putting me in the Canadian median. “On average, most individuals take around one to three flights per year. This number includes both domestic and international flights”, concludes consumer site NCESC.com. Canadians mostly travel in winter to sunshine destinations in the Caribbean and, until recently, in the U.S.
Travel has changed
Over the years, the nature of air travel has greatly evolved. Security has been hugely enhanced since 9/11, sometimes making airports a gauntlet to battle through. Budget-cutting by airlines has ended the “luxury” of flying, except in Business class. Classy service was the norm in the 1950s into the 1960s, with attentive stewardesses, as they were called, and enhanced menus.
Seats and leg room are now usually cramped in Economy class. And as one Internet meme snidely portrays it, a pretzel with a plastic cup of ginger ale now constitutes an airline “meal”. The term Airbus aptly describes this uninspiring experience. –Get over it, buddy, reply the airlines.
Security restrictions are expanded in the aircraft, of course. When I first took a transatlantic flight, in 1975, I carried with me a business card signed by an Air Canada pilot I knew from Toronto. I handed that to the stew, and she quickly walked me up to the cockpit of the Boeing 747 so I could sit beside the pilots and chat with them. –Unimaginable today!
As for flight technology, even 50 years ago the two 747 pilots raised their hands in a shrug and admitted candidly that “the plane flies itself”.
Most mind-blowing today, certainly for me, is the growth and “normalization” of instant worldwide travel – flying anywhere right away. I recall a lecture in the 1980s by the then-moderator of the United Church, Dr. Robert McClure. He had served as a medical missionary in China from 1926 to 1948. McClure recalled having recently been in an airport in London where a giant poster boasted its flights to “Singapore in 16 hours”.
He mused that when he first started his work in the 1920s it was six weeks’ travel to China, then another six weeks to western China. With no stewardesses, ha.
Still, that does not mean that everyone today can just jump in a taxi and take off to wherever. Smaller, rural and regional locales often have no nearby airport with national links. As is the case with, yes … Sherbrooke.
In a Townships Weekend column comparing Sherbrooke to the very similar city of Burlington, Vermont (“Burlington-Sherbrooke: Twin cities?”, April 2023), I noted the ease of access to the American city’s airport and its many national airline connections. We do not have that in the Townships, and so we’ve been stuck with a two-hour drive to the Montreal-Trudeau airport in Dorval.
New facility in 2025
That all changes this year. The Montreal Saint-Hubert Airport, operational since 1927, is being transformed into a commercial aviation hub. It is being relaunched as the Montreal Metropolitan Airport (MET) and is expected to open its new terminal and begin commercial flights in late summer this year.
The renovated Saint-Hubert airport will give Montreal a second, smaller airport for regional and national flights. Many other cities have such secondary terminals, notably Toronto with its little Billy Bishop airport on the city’s waterfront.
MET is partnering with Porter Airlines to build a nine-gate passenger terminal, forecast to handle up to four million passengers per year (Dorval handles about 20 million). It will host domestic flights only, with no Customs facilities for international flights.
Reader comments at the OMAAT site, which monitors airports and travel worldwide, have been generally favourable to MET:
“Saint-Hubert airport is much more convenient for a catchment area of about 2 million people stretching from the South Shore eastwards and northwards”, added one reader.
Another poster added: “There’s a train station right next to the airport that’s about 20 minutes away from Gare Centrale. If they can run a shuttle bus and increase train frequency (especially in off-peak times and directions), then I see no reason how this would be a worse option than YUL, even after the REM opens. Maybe even better.”
Indeed, this will mean – at least for domestic flights — no more requirement for Townships-based travellers to struggle through traffic in Brossard, Longueuil and over the Champlain bridge before navigating autoroute 20 west to Dorval.
Instead, after driving in on autoroute 10, at the junction with autoroute 30 at the edge of Brossard, you will just turn east and drive 13 minutes (Mapquest estimate) to the junction of highway 112 (boulevard Cousineau). Then turn north on Cousineau another 13 mins to the airport entrance. Voilà!
Trips to downtown Toronto via boutique airline Porter are sure to be particularly popular. In the 1980s, I used to fly regularly on City Express airline from Dorval to the Island airport in Toronto. That greatly reduced stress and transit times by arriving near the city centre.
Sherbrooke is close to the South Shore of Montreal; indeed, there is a campus of the Université de Sherbrooke there, with a metro station of the same name. We are all part of the broader southeast region of Quebec.
Handled correctly, this new air link offers great opportunities for regional diversification. Business travellers and tourists will be eager to see this new gateway.
Are Townships political and business leaders prepared for takeoff?
Originally published in the Sherbrooke Record, Townships Weekend supplement, April 4, 2025
