Travellers report major traffic delays driving to Montreal-Trudeau Airport, CityNews puts it to the test

Travellers, taxi drivers and airport officials agree that getting to Montréal-Trudeau International Airport has become increasingly challenging during the busy summer travel season.

To see just how long the trip can take, CityNews ordered a taxi from its downtown Montreal office at 3:15 p.m. on a Friday and timed the journey to the airport.

When the trip began, Google Maps estimated it would take 57 minutes to reach the terminal. The drive ultimately took more than an hour, with the biggest delay coming after exiting Highway 20 at Exit 56, where traffic slowed to a crawl on the final stretch leading to the departures area.

“It’s only 17 kilometres from downtown to the airport,” said Taxi Champlain driver Antoine Jkayem. “Normally, it takes 15 or 17 minutes.”

Jkayem said the bottleneck begins once vehicles leave the highway.

“Even from the exit of the highway to the departures, that’s the longest way. Sometimes the lineup stretches more than one kilometre back onto the highway,” he said.

For taxi drivers, the congestion has become more than just an inconvenience. Fares between downtown Montreal and the airport are fixed, meaning longer trips don’t generate additional income.

“The time that it is taking … from downtown to the airport, it’s a flat rate,” Jkayem said. “When you spend an hour and a half, an hour and 45 minutes, sometimes more, it’s not feasible for us anymore.”

Jkayem ran the meter to compare the fare with the flat daytime rate of $48.40 from downtown to the airport. By the end of the trip, the metered fare had climbed to over $77.

He said passengers are also feeling the impact.

“Some of them know they should allow at least one hour or one and a half hours because of the traffic. Some of them don’t know that and either they miss their flights or they take their luggage from the highway and they go walking.”

Airport officials say the congestion is being driven by record passenger volumes.

Anne-Sophie Hamel, spokesperson for Aéroports de Montréal, said more than two million passengers travel through Montréal-Trudeau each month during the summer, pushing the airport’s road network beyond its capacity.

“It’s a lot of people coming into our infrastructures, and our infrastructures are at capacity,” Hamel said. “During certain periods of the day, our main ramp area has about a thousand vehicles more than the capacity of that infrastructure.”

The airport is in the midst of a $10-billion modernization project that includes new access roads and redesigned pickup and drop-off areas. However, officials say significant improvements are not expected until at least 2028.

In the meantime, Hamel recommends travellers continue arriving three hours before departure.

“When you give yourself the three-hour buffer to get to the airport, even though there’s a 30- or 35-minute wait time to get through that last kilometre to the front of the airport, you’re going to be okay.”

Many travellers said the delays remain frustrating.

“It took me about an hour and a half,” said Adele Boukai, who travelled from Laval. “Usually it’s a 20-minute drive.”

Another traveller, Fatima Naim, said she left much earlier than usual.

“It takes me about an hour because there is a lot, a lot, a lot of traffic. I actually left really early to make sure I got here.”

Marie Lamenseh said the drive was smooth until the final approach.

“It was fine from my house until about 30 minutes ago, and then it stopped. It was just really slow.”

Another traveller said his family spent more than an hour reaching the airport before being redirected to another parking lot, forcing them to walk roughly 30 minutes back to the terminal.

Aéroports de Montréal recommends passengers plan ahead by using express drop-off lots with shuttle service, the STM’s 747 airport bus, Air Canada’s downtown shuttle from the Palais des congrès and the new STM Route 815 connecting the airport with the REM’s Des Sources station.

Officials acknowledge congestion is expected to continue during peak summer travel periods for at least the next two years as construction continues.

“If you ask any taxi driver what’s the best ride you can get, he’ll tell you immediately it’s the airport,” Jkayem said. “But now it’s becoming a nightmare.”