Flying From YHU: What Montrealers Need to Know About Saint-Hubert Airport

For decades, flying out of Montreal meant one thing: YUL. You fought traffic on the 20 or the 40, paid whatever the parking garage demanded, and shuffled through a terminal built for 20 million passengers a year. That monopoly just cracked. On June 15, 2026, a brand new passenger terminal opened at Saint-Hubert Airport in Longueuil, rebranded as the MET, Montreal Metropolitan Airport, with Porter Airlines as its anchor tenant. If you live on the South Shore, or anywhere east of downtown, this changes the math on a lot of domestic trips.

Here is what YHU actually offers as of August 2026, where it beats YUL, and where it clearly does not.

What exactly is the MET?

Saint-Hubert Airport has existed since 1927 and has long been one of Canada’s busiest airfields by aircraft movements, mostly flight schools and regional traffic. What is new is the passenger terminal: a 21,000 square metre building with nine boarding bridges, a 900 seat departure lounge, two baggage carousels, and capacity for about four million passengers a year, according to Aerospace Global News. Porter Airlines committed to the project back in February 2023 and built its Montreal expansion around it.

The pitch is simple: a small airport that behaves like one. Nine gates instead of dozens. One security checkpoint. A curb that sits a short walk from check-in. The terminal’s developers say the whole building was designed so that every step from the door to the gate is shorter than what you are used to at a hub airport. Early construction timelines targeted late 2025, and the opening slipped to June 2026, so the facility you walk into today is only a few months old.

One caveat worth stating plainly: the original plan called this a late 2025 opening, and some older articles still describe it that way. The terminal welcomed its first commercial passengers on June 15, 2026, per the airport’s own site and Time Out Montreal’s coverage.

Who flies from YHU, and where

Porter is the show. As of August 2026 the airline operates 12 routes from YHU with up to 138 weekly departures, launched in a single week between June 15 and June 22, according to AeroRoutes and Milesopedia:

Year round: Toronto Billy Bishop (27 flights per week), Toronto Pearson (up to 20 per week), Vancouver (14), Halifax (14), Hamilton (14), Quebec City (7), Calgary (7), Edmonton (7). Seasonal for summer: St. John’s, Winnipeg, Charlottetown and Moncton, each daily.

Flights use two aircraft: the Embraer E195-E2 jet (132 seats, 2-2 layout, no middle seats) on longer routes, and the De Havilland Dash 8-400 turboprop (78 seats) on short hops like Billy Bishop and Hamilton.

The other scheduled carrier is Pascan Aviation, a Quebec regional airline that operated from Saint-Hubert long before the new terminal existed. Pascan connects YHU to Quebec City, Gaspé, Îles-de-la-Madeleine, Bonaventure and Saint John, New Brunswick, per the airport’s Wikipedia entry and Pascan’s own site. If you have family in the Gaspésie or the Islands, Pascan from YHU has quietly been the practical option for years. Better still, Porter and Pascan now sell connecting itineraries on a single ticket with bags checked through automatically, per Milesopedia, so a Vancouver to Gaspé trip can happen on one booking through YHU.

Note one absence: there is no Porter route from YHU to Ottawa as of August 2026. Ottawa remains a YUL, train, or highway trip.

How YHU compares with YUL

On location, the right answer depends on your postal code. From Longueuil, Brossard, Saint-Lambert or Boucherville, YHU is a 10 to 20 minute drive and YUL is a 30 to 45 minute slog across a bridge, worse in rush hour. From the Plateau or downtown, the two are surprisingly comparable, roughly 20 to 30 minutes to either one outside peak traffic, since YHU sits just across the Jacques-Cartier bridge. From the West Island, stick with YUL and do not overthink it.

On parking, YHU publishes three tiers as of August 2026: an Express lot at the terminal door for $54 per day, Express Comfort at $35, and an economy lot at $24 per day with a shuttle, out of about 2,600 total spaces, per the airport’s parking partner Indigo. YUL’s on-site EconoParc lots run about $30 per day at drive-up rates, per Milesopedia’s parking guide, with covered and central garage parking climbing toward $50. YHU’s cheapest official option undercuts YUL’s, but off-airport park and shuttle lots near YUL can still beat both. For a week-long trip, the honest gap between the two airports’ economy options is around $40, real money but rarely the deciding factor.

Getting there without a car

This is YHU’s weakest point. There is no REM station, no metro station, and no rail link at the terminal. The REM’s South Shore branch ends at Brossard station, a good 10 km away with no direct airport connection.

What exists instead is the METbus, a shuttle operated with the RTL that links the terminal to Longueuil metro station (Yellow Line) about every 35 minutes, per the MET’s official site. From Berri-UQAM, that means one metro stop plus a shuttle, which is genuinely workable from central Montreal. The shuttle runs as an enhanced RTL route 428 with 28 weekday departures and stops along the way, per Le Courrier du Sud, and exo’s Mont-Saint-Hilaire commuter line stops at Longueuil-Saint-Hubert station on the shuttle’s route, though train schedules are thin outside rush hour.

Compare that with YUL, where the 747 bus runs 24 hours from downtown and the REM will eventually serve the airport directly. If you travel by transit, YUL still wins unless the shuttle timing happens to line up with your flight.

Are fares from YHU actually cheaper?

Sometimes, and less often than the hype suggests. Porter prices YHU and YUL as separate origins, and it still flies plenty of routes from YUL itself. When Porter wants to fill the new terminal, YHU fares on overlapping routes like Toronto can dip below the YUL equivalent. On routes where YHU is the only Porter option, prices track what the market will bear.

The practical move is to always compare both airports on any domestic search. If you are pricing the classic Montreal to Toronto run, check the YUL to YYZ route page alongside Porter’s YHU options to Pearson and Billy Bishop, and remember that Billy Bishop lands you downtown Toronto, which can be worth more than the fare difference. FareSeeker tracks Montreal area deals from both airports, so keep an eye on the current deals page and set your searches to compare rather than defaulting to YUL out of habit. Deep discounts on brand new routes tend to be sale-driven and short-lived, so when one appears, it rewards the traveler who books that week.

The honest limitations

Everything from YHU is domestic. No United States, no sun destinations, no Europe as of August 2026. Porter’s Mexico and Caribbean flying departs from its other bases, and nothing international has been scheduled from Saint-Hubert. If your winter revolves around an all-inclusive, this airport does nothing for you yet.

The network is 12 Porter routes plus Pascan’s regional map, and four of those Porter routes are summer seasonal. There is no connecting bank to speak of: if your trip needs a connection to somewhere Porter does not serve from YHU, you will usually be better off starting at YUL rather than building a self-connection through Toronto on separate tickets.

Small also means thin on backup. With a nine gate terminal and a schedule this young, a weather day or a mechanical problem leaves fewer rebooking options than a hub airport with hourly departures. Porter can rebook you through its other airports, but the recovery will be slower than at YUL. If you are flying to a wedding or a cruise with zero slack, book the earliest departure of the day, and know that last-minute alternatives from YUL exist if things go sideways.

Practical tips for your first YHU flight

Check in online, and treat 90 minutes before departure as your anchor. The airport’s official guidance says domestic passengers should be checked in at least 90 minutes out, with extra margin if you have bags to drop. In practice the small terminal moves fast, but the schedule is Porter-heavy, and Porter’s cutoffs are strictly enforced.

On baggage, normal Porter rules apply: the cheapest PorterClassic Basic fare on jet flights includes only a personal item, so price in a checked bag or a higher fare tier if you travel with a rollaboard. Sign up for VIPorter before you fly, since it is free, every dollar earns points toward future base fares, and free WiFi on the E195-E2 requires an account login anyway.

And bring your parking decision made in advance. The $24 economy lot plus shuttle is the value play; the $54 Express lot is for the morning you oversleep.

Montreal deals we are seeing this week

FAQ

Is YHU replacing YUL for Montreal travelers? No. YHU is a complement, not a replacement. It handles domestic Porter and Pascan flights with a ceiling of about four million passengers a year, while YUL carries the international, US and sun network for the region. Think of YHU as the shortcut for Toronto, the Maritimes and Western Canada, especially if you live on the South Shore.

How early should I arrive at YHU? Be checked in at least 90 minutes before a domestic departure, per the airport’s published guidance. With online check-in and carry-on only, arriving 60 to 75 minutes out is comfortable given the single checkpoint, but leave more room during the morning departure bank when most flights leave close together.

Can I fly to the US or a sun destination from YHU? Not as of August 2026. Every scheduled route from the new terminal is within Canada. Porter runs its US, Mexico and Caribbean flights from other airports, and any YHU international service would be a future announcement, not something to plan a trip around today.