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Simeon Mitropolitski is a Canadian analyst, of Bulgarian origin, and a former syndicated columnist with the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA). He is the author of several hundred articles dealing with hot political and economic topics, both national and international.

He was part of the first group of Bulgarian intellectuals and students that began the opposition movement that finally put an end to the communist regime in this country in 1989, and in 1996-1997 participated in international observation teams during the elections in several Balkan countries - Romania, Albania and Bulgaria.

In 2002 Simeon and his family moved from Bulgaria to Canada where they live now in Montreal, province of Quebec. Simeon is a Master of Political Science from McGill University and a B.A. of Political Science and History.

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Airports are like the planes, either they can take off or they can't. In the first case the business goes well, not only for the passenger carriers, but also for the local population. In the second scenario, the business goes bad and this affects negatively the area in general, not only the air companies, but also the real estate projects.

In the 60s Montreal and its local administration had the dream to turn the city into the vibrant economic and cultural center of Northern America if not equal to then as close as possible to New York. At that time the city mayor Jean Drapeau succeeded at making Montreal the center for World Expo'67. He also convinced the International Olympic Committee to organize the summer games in Montreal in 1976. Expecting the city to grow to over 5 million persons by the end of the XX century, during these glorious times of economic and baby boom, the local administration decided to build second international airport in Mirabel (40 miles north of downtown Montreal).

So far so good in the best of all worlds. Today although we understood with sorrow that the international airport of Mirabel, the same that had to illustrate the glory of Montreal being as almost equal to New York, would be closed for passenger's flights in 2004. What has happened during the last 30 years that turned the dreams into nightmares? Why so strange a decision had to be made?

The airport of Mirabel was opened with great pomp in October 1975, less than a year before the Summer Olympic games of 1976. The same year began the massive outflow of English speaking population of Montreal towards Toronto. During the 70s, 80s and the first half of 90s the province of Quebec and more exactly Montreal lost a population of 400,000. As far as we know this trend continues even now on more limited scale. During the same 25 years period Montreal lost many more thousands would-be immigrants who preferred to settle in other more politically quiet provinces such as Ontario and British Columbia. The result was that Greater Montreal never reached 5 millions by the end of the century (3,6 million in 2002).

Having two major airports instead of one cost Montreal a part of the international/domestic and international/international transit market because of the distance between Mirabel and the other major airport in Dorval (30 miles). For this reason one of the biggest European air companies Lufthansa decided to make Toronto its major destination in Canada.

So the game for Mirabel was over long ago and it continued to operate only because of the harsh lobbying of the local interest groups.

The final blow to Mirabel's future came after 9/11 when the traffic decreased substantially and the airline company Canada 3000 closed down. The transfer of all passenger flights from Mirabel to Dorval will certainly affect the whole business north of the island of Montreal. More than a dozen hotels used mainly by the passengers will be closed or will have to contribute to creation of new local attractions for tourists. Many thousand workers will lose their jobs, which will affect the house market.

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