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Montréal–Mirabel International Airport (YMX) originally called Montréal International Airport, widely known as Mirabel and branded as YMX International Aerocity of Mirabel, is a cargo and former international passenger airport in Mirabel, Quebec, 39 km (24 miles) northwest of Montreal.
 It opened on October 4, 1975 and the last commercial passenger flight took off on October 31, 2004.The main role of the airport today is cargo flights, but it is also home to medical evacuation flights and general aviation and is a manufacturing base for Airbus Canada, where final assembly of the Airbus A220 takes place (formerly Bombardier CSeries).
It was also the assemby site for the Bombardier CRJ regional jets until early 2021 when the last CRJ was produced. The CRJ business was sold to Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in Japan. Mirabel airport is also the headquarters of charter airline Nolinor.
The former passenger terminal apron is now a racing course, and the terminal building was demolished in 2016.
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An end to Mirabel's (YMX) losing streak.
You’ve got to feel for the town of Mirabel. First the Mirabel International Airport turns out to be a white elephant. Then, during the mid-2000's, projects so outrageous they should have been immediately recognized as unfeasible were announced for the Mirabel area, about 40 kilometres north of Montreal.
Thankfully for Mirabel, those plans to turn the old airport terminal into a type of theme park were abandoned years ago. So was the old Lac Mirabel project, off Highway’s exit 28, which would have invested $425 million project into a tourist and commercial complex, complete with a giant aquarium. With U.S.-based Simon Property Group and its Canadian partners, now pledging to create an 80-store outlet centre on part of the old Lac Mirabel site, it would be fun to revisit some of those ‘what could have beens.’
Remember Reveport, or Aerodream? News reports from 2006 said French investors were planning to invest $100 million to turn Mirabel airport into a year-round “recreational multiplex” complete with a “beach, spa, fitness centre, conventional and high-tech theatres, discos, arcades, museum, exhibition hall, TV studio, shops, and restaurants.” Oh and let’s not forget the “giant aquarium, complete with acrylic tunnel that people could walk through to see the fish.” The project would be viable with 800,000 visitors a year, reporters were told. In the end there were none.
AeroDream followed Lac Mirabel, a similar scheme announced in 2005 for 330,000 square feet of mini-lakes, a 140,000-square-foot aquarium with 20,000 different species, a nearly 100,500-square-foot spa, a 70,000- square-foot indoor city for children, a 500,000-square-foot sports complex and a 3,000-seat auditorium. Straight-faced developers insisted that there would be no overlap between the two projects.
Source: The Montreal Gazette - May 22, 2012
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