mkjr

yes. never been an "E" in any Canadian Club Whisky. now if only I could get some of the stuff that is export only to Japan here....although perhaps the sale to Suntory will change this (doubt it....at best, perhaps make it easier to get some of the Suntory products here without the offensive agent mark ups). IIRC, the good CC is export only...

orbitmic

Negronis - yummy!! ^ Hope you managed to make it back home smoothly at the end!

LondonElite

Nope! Had a nice dinner in sweltering Munich and decided to spend the night at the Sofitel, allowing me to observe the seedier side of humanity around the train station (uncouth drunks, hookers, dubious north Africans selling chep watches) while drinking first a round Monkey 47s and tonic, followed by a nice Tuscan Sangiovese, from the outside 'club bar'. I will attempt a journey home tomorrow!

zkzkz

AF and SWISS still run a bus from YUL to XDS (Ottawa train station). I'm not sure why BA doesn't but you can book a Westjet connection from YYZ -- you even earn tier points on it.

Mirabel failed for a number of reasons. Montreal was a huge hub when airlines could barely make it across the Atlantic. Once newer planes could reach YYZ, ORD, DTW directly from Europe it made a lot less sense. When Mirabel was built it was already on borrowed time. Splitting the international and domestic flights between two airports put the nail in the coffin. Not being able to catch connections to domestic flights defeated the whole idea of a using it as a connecting point to get to Europe. Plus the Montreal economy was decimated by separatism and Mirabel was a million miles from downtown etc etc.

The plan was always to build a high speed rail from the city which would have made it pretty convenient -- if you happened to live near the high speed rail station. It was also supposed to be the airport for Ottawa but Ottawa never really used it and I don't think they even put the highway in from Ottawa to it.

As an airport it didn't have much in its favour. The design was copied from everyone's favourite airport CDG with the terrible mobile lounge system you can still see in operation at IAD.

When most longhaul flights bypassed Montreal and newer planes like the 777 which are a lot quieter replaced the 747s they moved all the international flights back to Dorval. A lot of local residents are still really upset by this. Charter flights stayed at Mirabel for a while afterwards but now even they're at Dorval.

Fedex still uses Mirabel. Not much else afaik

orbitmic

And good luck with it. At least you cleverly transformed an annoying irrop into a nice opportunity to take a few hours watching the world live by, one of my favourite hobbies. And the drinks must have helped make up for the gloomier sides of said train-station-area life!

Seat64A

BA flights to PHL were introduced in 1970. The idea was to use VC10s freed up by the planned introduction of the 747 in May of that year, which didn't happen. It was daily then (I seem to recall the flight continuing on to IAD, which was another new destination) and continued as daily (not twice) when 747s were introduced, by which point it was LHR-BOS-PHL.

Seat64A

I think the description of Mirabel as being like Ryanair's Paris or Brussels is exaggerated. Mirabel and Dorval were Montreal's CDG and Orly (or Le Bourget) in terms of distance from their respective cities.

Mirabel might have worked had a fast rail link been built and Dorval closed. (It has a motorway connection.) Let's not forget that Dorval is in a relatively built up area; its closure would have brought relief to those who suffer noise disturbance.

irishguy28

Only Irish whiskey gets the "E".

Seat64A

From the BOAC timetable 1 July-26 October, 1968:

Daily Montreal-Chicago (dep. 1500, arr. 1605)
Daily Chicago-Montreal (dep. 1815, arr. 2105)
VC10s

Daily Montreal-Toronto (dep. 1415, arr. 1520)
Daily Toronto-Montreal (dep. 1800, arr. 1900)
707s with Y only

The fact that there is no fare information suggests that BOAC did not have traffic rights.

(If anyone is interested, Heathrow-Dorval was Ł285 16s return in F; Ł153 12s in Y, but higher 22 May to 28 September.)

The timetable also shows BOS-JFK and BOS-DTW flights.

FrancisA

Just to add to the reminiscences of Mirabel. They didn't build the highway to Ottawa while Mirabel was a passenger airport, although they have subsequently upgraded highway 50 in the Montebello area, which is how I came to pass Mirabel in June.

The terminal building is still standing, but the road signage seemed to indicate that you couldn't drive into the car parks or to the front of the terminal and there seemed to be chain fencing round it.

Finally, parts of Mirabel were used for the filming of the Tom Hank's film The Terminal.

In many ways the Mirabel story is similar to MXP/LIN in Milan. If you don't close the downtown airport and don't provide good transport infrastructure, both road and rail, then your out-of-town airport is fairly doomed from the start.

LondonElite

I think you are all being a bit harsh on Mirabel. I flew out if there many many times in the late 70s and 80s, typically on a LH DC10 or a BA 747-100. Whilst it wasn't as close to Westmount or the West Island as Dorval, it was easily accessible by car, mainly because there was never a traffic jam. 45 minutes tops and you were there. Try doing that at JFK. The terminal itself was bright and airy, and I thought those shuttles (IAD-style) were interesting. I agree that it had white elephant written all over it, and the idea of connecting at Dorval was stupid. Also, way too much land was expropriated which made a lot of locals just hate the place.

But I have my find memories.

LondonElite

I could have been much worse, though I wish they would clean up the area around the train station. Sofitel does the trick, with a nice top-floor suite with a view (just) of the Alps. But seeing people passed out and throwing beer bottles at each other just brings you back to reality a bit.