^ and a massive tourist industry.

WestJet runs more flights out of Toronto than they do Calgary. But yes, Calgary is certainly WS's major focus in the west.

This wasn't the smartest statement I ever read on this thread. Do you think 95 million people uses Atlanta's airport because Atlanta is a rich city and Atlantans just hop on planes more than the rest of the US?? You know what a hub is and what it does to passengers numbers?

What killed Montreal's traffic was the colossal error of building Mirabel in the middle of nowhere as THE (intended) international hub of the country, even the continent. From the mid 70's and for more than 20 years, international flights HAD to use Mirabel - there were none of these flights from Dorval. For many reasons I won't list here (having to take an hour bus ride to catch your corresponding flight was certainly one of them) this was a huge failure and all international flights ended up leaving the region instead of flocking over at Mirabel as intended. The hub was dead.

Now all passenger flights are back at Dorval but it will take quite a long time before they can rebuild the business since flights have all been established elsewhere.

Also some cities have multiple airports making the codes very important. I was on the Underground to Heathrow earlier this month and half way there some guy realized his flight was actually leaving from London City Airport instead. I doubt he made his flight.

Is Australia's tourism industry bigger than Canada's though?

From what I've read, Canada tourism industry is worth 85 billion compared to Australias's 35 billion...

http://tiac.travel/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourism_in_Australia

I think Canada has bigger tourism numbers but we also have more attractions and they are spread out across the land. Major destinations in Australia, on the other hand, are concentrated in the south-east.

From some very quick searches I came up with 18 billion for Canada in 2009 and 35 billion for Australia in 2010.

Just from from my own experiences in either country, it was abundantly clear that Australia has a much bigger tourism industry compared to Canada, especially amongst young Europeans. Booze cruises are basically a right of passage for British people.

Either way most tourists to Canada drive north to from the states. Everyone has to fly to oz.

^^ That's very misleading. Canadian tourism numbers dwarf Australian, but tourists who do go to Australia stay much longer, and naturally spend more money once there. Conclusion: our airports are receiving just as many, if not more, tourists. What they spend when they get here is another matter.

Ours is bigger in # of tourists, there's is bigger in dollars spent. Besides, most of Australia's traffic is domestic. The issue is that Ottawa treats airports as their own private bank account rather than key economic infrastructure. The result: our airports struggle under a mountain of fees, while theirs act as economic engines of growth. It's another example of government lowering our standard of living through layers of bureaucracy and fees.

Another factor that explains low numbers for both Montreal and Quebec City is that family-related air travel is extremely low in Quebec. 95% of French speaking Canadians live within a day's drive or less from Montreal.

I don't know anybody who flies from Gatineau to Gaspésie or Montreal to Rouyn-Noranda or Quebec City to Sherbrooke or Ottawa to Edmundston to visit family. In fact, I've never in my life known anyone to do this.

If there is a secondary option to driving it is the train.

Whereas "other Canadians" tend to have their families more spread out across the country, and this boosts the air travel numbers considerably.

Almost nobody in my experience flies between two points in Quebec unless it's on business.

Hmmm interesting!

Also, I seem to remember seeing a graphic recently, can't remember where though, showing that the Sydney - Melbourne (and vise versa) flight route is one of the 10 busiest on the planet currently.

Perhaps once this boom is complete in Toronto and Montreal, that flight route will become a lot busier due to business flights? I dunno. A lot of Montreal's proposals seem to be business (office towers) and tourist (hotels) related, so that could bode well for the business connectivity between the cities, hopefully.

The poor city argument BTW is fallacious. Family incomes are within a thousands dollars of each other in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver.

What? Who said anything about any of those cities being poor?

I don't know for sure but I suspect that modal share for flights is a lot higher for Sydney-Melbourne. They're significantly farther apart than Toronto and Montreal, 876 km compared to 542. And although their passenger rail system is a lot more extensive than ours, the train is really slow. Flying really is the only option for the Aussies.

Ohhh I didn't realize it was that significantly farther between the cities.

Highway links between the two cities are not exactly optimal either, although slowly improving.

A decent portion of the Sydney-Melbourne route is still two lanes and undivided.

Yeah, I initially thought it was like Montreal-Toronto as well when I went there. But noooo.

And I also thought the same of Sydney-Brisbane was the same. But it's about 1000 km -there also a good portion of the route is two lanes undivided, and passes through towns. Though once again things are being upgraded there.

For Chadillac... see highlighted portion.

As I said, that's not really the reason for less air travel traffic from Montreal as opposed to Toronto or Vancouver.

So it's more like Calgary - Vancouver than Montreal - Toronto.

"Other Canadians" have family spread out around the WORLD.