Since Montreal seems to lag behind in its passenger numbers, its importance as an international gateway can be overlooked. It is a very important international airport, both in terms of number of passengers, but especially in terms of airlines. It has much better service to Africa and the Middle East than even Toronto, for example.

^^^ Yes it is the Canadian connection to all the French speaking African countries.

Exactly. YUL has more international passengers annually than domestic or transborder (61% of total), contrarily to YYC, which is more of a domestic airport. Hence companies like Royal Air Maroc, Syphax, Royal Jordanian and Air Algérie being only present at YUL for the entire country. So Trudeau's stats are often underlooked... It is a hub for french-speaking countries, just like YVR is a hub for Asia.

Realistically the Transborder (AKA US flights) are actually international flights since they are leaving Canada so when one looks at things that way, the percentage of international in all of Canada's major airports is higher. Once that is considered and the higher tie in to the US in outside of Quebec (due to language) the international percentage comes more inline with Montreal.

That's true. Montreal has different flight patterns in Canada vs the other hubs due to the language difference, therefore different travel patterns. Toronto however has all (again totally different ball game.

They really aren't though, A transborder can be done on a 737, A320, or even a CRJ/turboprop etc... whereas the majority of international done from Canadian airports are long distance widebody aircraft flying intercontinental. I'ts kinda silly to lump a flight from Toronto to Rochester on United Express into the same bucket as a flight from Toronto to Dubai on an Emirates A380.

Canadian airports break them out for a reason.

Yes different planes, but they are not domestic flights due to having to clear customs.

Sure, but it is a big difference in terms of an airports connectivity. Clearing customs is one thing but being connected to the globe via simple flights is very different.

I've always considered 20 million PAX roughly the point where I view an airport as big. Canada isn't too far off from having 4 airports pass that benchmark. Maybe by 2020?

Pearson should really be at 50-55 million considering the size of market its serving. Most Canadian airports have never been able to fully tap their potential due to the sky high taxes the feds place on our airports. It says a lot when cities like Sydney beat Toronto in PAX with Melbourne way out in front of Montreal.

Yet again, Australia is isolated, so they need to fly whenever they want to leave the country, contrarily to Canada with the U.S... Hence their high PAX numbers, and it's the contrary for YUL, people don't need to fly to go to NYC, DC, Boston or even Toronto.

Considering Australia is MUCH more isolated than Canada of course air traffic will be higher. Other than the occasional cruise ship there is NO other way for international travelers to reach Australia. As for Canada, well just look south. That is where the vast majority of international travelers come from and it is a lot easier to drive vs fly....

Double post....

Lol, of course it would come out within 24 hrs of me typing this up. Revised list as follows:

YYZ: Jan-June 18,371,030 (+5.6%), rolling 12 mo: 37,088,499
YVR: Jan-July 11,151,541 (+8.1%), rolling 12 mo: 18,808,653
YYC: Jan-July 8,765,398. (+7.5%), rolling 12 mo: 14,930,945
YUL: Jan-June 7,155,071 (+3.0%), rolling 12 mo: 14,304,334
YEG: Jan-July 4,769,759 (+8.1%), rolling 12 mo: 8,054,263*
YOW: Jan-July 2,701,958 (+0.2%), rolling 12 mo: 4,584,278
YHZ: inquired, won't share data for 2014, 2013: 3,585,864
YWG: Jan-June (est.) 1,781,591 (+3.5% est.), rolling 12 mo (est.): 3,543,477**
YTZ***: nothing posted, rolling 12 mo: anyone's guess, 2013: 2,300,000 approx.
YYJ: Jan-July 932,954 (+5.9%), rolling 12 mo: 1,608,881
YLW: Jan-July 921,769 (+6.8%), rolling 12 mo: 1,562,090
YYT***: nothing posted, rolling 12 mo: anyone's guess, 2013: 1,500,000 approx.
YQB***: Jan-July (no numbers posted) (approx +6.8%), 2013: 1,475,717
YXE***: nothing posted, rolling 12 mo: anyone's guess, 2013: 1,389,900
YQR***: nothing posted, rolling 12 mo: anyone's guess, 2013: 1,227,234
YMM: Jan-July 763,202 (+12.0%), rolling 12 mo: 1,277,439

Notes:
*YEG recently began including FBO passenger stats, bringing them in line with other airports.
**based on YWG's announced "6% growth in 2nd quarter".
***awaiting data from respective Airport Authorities via email, will update info upon getting any info.

People often use that argument, but it doesn't hold up to much scrutiny. Canadian domestic PAX should be 50% higher than domestic Australian PAX but it's no where close to that. We don't fly as often because it's far more expensive to do so here. Montreal and Melbourne are about the same size while Toronto serves 50% more people than Sydney. The Montreal - Toronto air route should be much busier, but they cream us. Why? The cost of air travel in this country.

Sydney - Melbourne (6,943,000 passengers in 2012: world's 5th busiest air route)
Toronto - Montreal (3,750,000 passengers in 2010: world's 15th busiest air route)

If anything our PAX numbers should benefit from having far more destinations within a hop skip and a jump. If you want to go to New York from Toronto you fly. No one drives there. We don't go very often because airline tickets in this country are MUCH higher than they are for a similar distance trip in other OECD nations. My room mate in London would fly to Norway for £14 to meet her friend for coffee. She'd do it once a month.

Why is Canadian PAX is so low: sky high airport taxes severely crimp on flying by the Canadian public. Toronto should be a far bigger north American hub than it is yet it even loses traffic to tiny cities like Buffalo. In most places in the world, it would be Toronto stealing traffic away from Buffalo. Again, it's sky high airport taxes impinging on Pearson's ability to compete.

Canadian PAX doesn't hold up to European PAX numbers either and that's despite the airline industry in Europe losing tons of traffic to HSR. The argument about Australia being isolated doesn't hold up to scrutiny and it certainly wouldn't apply to Europe either. Europe isn't isolated.

http://themetropolitain.ca/articles/view/872

^ It can't help the situation that the first order of business after airports were devolved to local authorities in the 90s were massive expansion projects. It's like every airport authority decided that something new had to be built right away.

On one hand it is wonderful that even the smallest Canadian burgs have beautiful new or heavily renovated/expanded terminals, but on the other hand someone has to pay for it, and it's the traveller through high fees levied on airlines and on individual users. So we have these lovely terminals but they likely have the effect of keeping pax numbers down by making it costlier to travel.

High five YVR @ 8.1%

Toronto & Montreal are too close together for it to be a big air route. Most people just drive. It's only 5 hours by car between the two. When you add in airport security times, having to get to the airport early, taking a cab/renting a car/taking transit to your final destination in Toronto or Montreal, etc. driving is often quite time-competitive.

And why is that a bad thing? Flying has a much bigger environmental cost than driving or taking the train. It's better for the environment for short trips like TOR-MTL to be done by ground.

I would agree with you that YUL offers substantial service to the Middle East compared to most North American airports, but I'll have to disagree with you on the fact that it's more than YYZ.. YYZ has far more capacity to the Middle East than YUL. Emirates 380, Etihad 77W, AC and El Al to Tel Aviv, Saudi 77W, Egyptair 77W. And if you categorize Cairo as Africa, combined with Ethiopian, YYZ would be a close second in capacity to YUL for service to Africa. Kenya Airways is also expected to start service to YYZ next year using 77L's.

Australia also liberalized their domestic market and 100% foreign-owned carriers can now operate domestic routes. The effect has been a dramatic increase in the number of low-cost carriers and a broad increase in service between the major markets.

Another effect has been the near total financial ruin of their flag carrier.