September 21, 2001

A hush descends on Dorval airport

Air passengers comply with new security checks.

JANE GEORGE
Nunatsiaq News

MONTREAL — The atmosphere at Dorval airport in Montreal has changed dramatically one week after terrorists hijacked four airplanes in the U.S.

And this new mood doesn’t look good for the airline industry or for tourism.

The airport is busy but subdued. There are lots of people but little noise.

Lines of passengers patiently waiting to check in curl around telephone booths and boutiques, but it doesn’t take long for them to pass through the new, improved security checks. Corridors leading to departure gates are quiet: few waiting areas seem to contain any passengers.

The First Air check-in counter is nearly empty, a change from the flood of backlogged travellers who hit the airport after air traffic resumed last Thursday.
Then, passengers were asked to turn up at Dorval airport at around 5 a.m. for a 7:05 a.m. First Air flight to Kuujjuaq.

The early morning scene around the First Air counter was chaotic. Hordes of hunters dressed in camouflage gear with guns milled around.

Security officers kept close tabs on them because the hunters’ guns made other travellers nervous.

After waiting for hours, passengers received slips of paper with handwritten numbers to exchange for boarding passes. Some with reservations for the morning flight found themselves transferred to later departures.

“No one could give us any information,” one man said. “The hardest part was not knowing what was happening, but under the conditions they were doing their best.”

Anyone travelling North is now told to arrive for check-in two hours before departure.

During check-in, agents ask passengers what’s in their bags, who packed them, and if they left them unattended.

At the First Air check-in counter, agents have extra time to spend with passengers because all is quiet.

Less then two weeks before the end of the annual caribou hunting season, usually the busiest season for air travel on this route, there are only 38 reservations for the flight to Kuujjuaq.

“We drove to Montreal,” said one man, a hunter from Michigan who drove 1,000 kilometres in 16 hours.

Otherwise, he and his buddies might not have made it to Montreal.

Agents say it was a quieter-than-average season for caribou hunting traffic even before the terror attacks in the U.S. But now, hunters and other passengers are staying home, not a good sign for what the future may hold for airlines and other related industries.