The Réseau express métropolitain (REM) station to be built at Montreal-Trudeau International Airport will be a “financial disaster” for its manager, who says he is going ahead with the project for reasons of sustainable development rather than to inflate its profits.
Passing in front of the Canadian Club of Montreal on Monday, the president and CEO of Aéroports de Montréal (ADM), Philippe Rainville, says he expects “to see the structure crack” if he is not able to go ahead with certain large-scale projects and that the recovery of passenger traffic is faster than anticipated.
ADM, a non-profit organization, had obtained interim funding of half a billion to develop a REM station in Montreal-Trudeau and save this project valued at 600 million. Quebec, Ottawa and the Canada Infrastructure Bank were part of the financial package.
“We will have fewer people in our parking lots,” said Mr. Rainville, in front of an audience of business people.
Once inaugurated, the REM station at the airport is expected to have a negative impact of between $ 5 million and $ 10 million on ADM’s annual revenues, according to estimates offered by the head of the non-profit organization.
On the sidelines of the event, Mr. Rainville said he promoted the project because in his opinion, “travelers think like us” and are in favor of a public transport infrastructure that serves the airport.
Forced on a slimming diet since the start of the pandemic, the operator of Montreal-Trudeau airport has postponed three major projects. The project to repair the “city side” landing stage is going back to the drawing board and will be more modest. The construction of a new terminal was also postponed.
Mr. Rainville believes that airports owned by Transport Canada should have the right to welcome investors willing to deploy “patient capital” to enable them to recover from the pandemic.