Montreal-Trudeau Airport is far from being at the top of the North American airports most appreciated by travelers, finding itself at the bottom of a ranking produced by the American firm JD Power.
The metropolis’ international airport was in fact ranked 26th out of 27 North American airports in its category, those that welcome between 10 million and 33 million passengers each year, according to the report published this week.
In this same ranking, the two other Canadian international airports, those of Vancouver and Calgary, are respectively in 15th and 23rd position.
To conduct its study, JD Power asked travelers about flow, the terminal, staff, customer experience at departure, restaurants, level of trust and services offered at arrival.
“It is important to mention that JD Power is a private firm, so we have little information on the detailed methodology because you have to pay to get that information,” added Yves Beauchamp, President and CEO of Aéroports de Montréal.
According to him, other in-house surveys and those of the Skytrax organization suggest that the airport would not be last on the list, but in 8th position in North America.
An airport under construction?
Mr. Beauchamp acknowledged, however, that there are “still access difficulties” at Montreal-Trudeau and that they are not about to be resolved since major work is expected over the next four years to improve passenger reception.
Tripling the capacity at the landing stages at the entrance, improving the baggage system and building a remote terminal are among the few objectives taken by the CEO.
“Until then, we expect there will still be obstacles and dissatisfaction,” he said.
Mr. Beauchamp also recalled that Canadian airports have not received the same boost as those located in the United States in recent years.
“When we compare ourselves to American airports, during the pandemic they received billions of dollars in government aid, so they were able to take advantage of this period to do major work, which we were not able to do here,” he said.
The JD Power survey surveyed 26,290 Canadian and U.S. residents who traveled at least once through a North American airport in the 30 days prior to the survey, which took place from August 2023 to July 2024.
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