After securing community backing and finding its first new airline tenant, Yanic Roy, CEO of Montreal Saint-Hubert Airport, is confident the right building blocks are in place for Canada’s second-largest city to open its second airport in summer 2025.
Roy was brought in by the owners of Saint-Hubert, a non-profit organisation called Développement Aéroport Saint-Hubert–Longueuil (DASH-L), two years ago to develop scheduled regional services. It will be a privately funded project and the US$145 million investment is secured, said Roy. The new four million passenger capacity terminal will feature nine gates.
“We position ourselves as complementary to Montreal International,” said Roy, and the first phase will see only domestic routes in the network, followed later by routes to US cities.
His first task for the airport, which has housed pilot training schools and the military, was to secure public backing for it. This has been obtained following extensive public consultations, with assurances that the airport will have no night flights and will play a strong community role – including job creation via the development of an aerospace cluster on site.
Roy has achieved his other priority: finding an anchor airline. Porter Airlines has signed a long-term lease for the terminal, while regional carrier Pascan Aviation, which operates domestic Saab 340 services from Montreal Saint-Hubert, is on board too.
