Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.
Like other Canadian airport authorities, Aéroports de Montréal, or ADM, is a community-based non-profit organization. ADM is the airport authority responsible for managing, operating and developing Montréal-Trudeau International Airport, or YUL, and the International Aerocity of Mirabel, or YMX, under a lease entered into with Transport Canada in 1992 that will expire in 2072.
Governed by an independent board of directors consisting of professional and independent managers, ADM receives no government operating grants and generally funds its infrastructure and other projects from its cash flow and debt. ADM has approximately 500 employees at its two airport sites.
Our lease sets forth certain rights and obligations of the parties to ensure that ADM carries out its mission for the community and ultimately provides the Government of Canada with state-of-the-art infrastructure. ADM is also required to submit to various processes, such as the one conducted by the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada, when it wishes to operate on its land. Those rights and obligations form a whole.
To provide greater Montreal with adequate infrastructure, the Canadian airport model is based on the airport authorities' borrowing capacity for the purpose of making required investments.
ADM is therefore a private corporation that manages public services. Its mission, in a sustainable development perspective, is to connect Montreal to the entire world through the talent and passion of its teams and to provide remarkable, safe and efficient services while developing its facilities and contributing to its community's prosperity with the vitality that characterizes greater Montreal.
ADM intends to succeed in its various operational sectors—airport, property and commercial services—and to operate its two sites to their full potential. To that end, YUL operates as a domestic and international hub for airlines transporting passengers both in and outside Canada. It is the gateway east of the Great Lakes to the regions of Quebec.
YUL was growing fast until the first quarter of 2020 and was committed to providing an efficient platform to its world-class airline and airport services partners. The international service that YUL offers has made it an envied air traffic hub in northeastern North America.
YUL supports more than 50,000 jobs in Quebec and contributes $6.8 billion to the province's nominal gross domestic product. With more than 200 businesses on its site, it's a major driver of economic activity.
In 2019, through 34 carriers, YUL served a total of 152 permanent and seasonal destinations: 90 overseas, 30 in the United States and 32 in Canada, including 13 in Quebec. It was the number 3 airport in Canada with more than 20 million passengers annually and first for the number of passengers travelling to and from a foreign city. Although YUL is already doing as well as it was in 2019, if not better, it isn't expected to return completely to pre-pandemic operational levels and numbers of flight offerings until 2024. After more than two years of pandemic conditions, YUL should quickly return to its previous role.
YMX, on the other hand, is a booming aviation hub whose partners include aerospace industry leaders and world-class businesses. It's also an industrial and logistical hub housing a fast-emerging transportation electrification sector. This duality poses unique challenges for ADM with regard, for example, to the expertise of its teams and additional costs.
ADM thus has to manage two sites with completely different missions and businesses. Despite those differences, no distinction is made in our lease between YUL and YMX, particularly as regards the rent Transport Canada charges. Before 2020, the revenue YUL generated offset YMX's operating deficit. During the pandemic, however, YUL stopped producing enough revenue to cover that expense.
We are also facing other challenges. ADM makes the highest payments in lieu of taxes, or PILT, of all airport authorities in Canada. In 2019. that charge amounted to $36.4 million for YUL alone, which represented 16% of its operating costs and a cost per passenger of $1.79, compared to $1.00 or less for all major airports. With the drastic decline in the number of travellers, that figure rose to $6.44 per passenger in 2020 and $6.65 in 2021. We've been harping on the need to put an end to this unfair situation for years now, without any support from the three orders of government.
In addition to having to bear the maintenance and operating costs of two sites, to pay Transport Canada a single unified rate and to make the highest PILT of all major airports, ADM also inherited the oldest terminal in Canada at its inception 30 years ago. The main body of Montréal-Trudeau International Airport dates back to the 1960s.
In closing, the assistance the federal government provides through the airport critical infrastructure program has been very valuable. Unfortunately, it has now been terminated and no additional funding was announced in the last budget.
However, in the wake of the pandemic, which radically undermined our organization's finances, resulting in additional debt of nearly $1 billion, ADM must continue its investment program to ensure that YUL's infrastructure meets the community's needs. More specifically, ADM must build a Réseau express métropolitain station and finance $500 million of the $600 million total cost of the project. ADM will also have to invest heavily to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and thus help decarbonize airport operations.
ADM will therefore be facing an enormous challenge over the next decade. Unless the Canadian airport model is reviewed, the requirements that have been added since airports were privatized in the 1990s will have to be examined. The airline industry is facing major challenges as it emerges from the pandemic, but it also has an opportunity to improve the Canadian airport model provided we have the means to do so.
Thank you.