World War II In the summer of 1940 the
Royal Canadian Air Force selected a flat area of farmland between Mont-Joli Station (on the
Montreal-
Halifax Canadian National Railway mainline) and the
Saint Lawrence River for a military airfield. Construction on the aerodrome began in October 1941 and was completed by April 1942 at a cost of $200,000. Three paved runways and 50 buildings were constructed for what became known as
RCAF Station Mont-Joli. Inaugurated on April 15, 1942, RCAF Station Mont-Joli was a training base for the
British Commonwealth Air Training Plan and hosted
No. 9 Bombing and Gunnery School from 15 December 1941 until 14 April 1945. RCAF Station Mont-Joli was used by RCAF Eastern Air Command during the
Battle of the St. Lawrence as a coastal patrol base; during 1942–1944, Canadian cargo ships and warships were sunk by
German U-boats in an effort to close the
Saint Lawrence Seaway off to shipping. Aircraft staging out of Mont-Joli were among those used to ward off U-boats and ensure the safety of shipping to the eastern tip of the
Gaspé Peninsula at Cap-Gaspé.
Aerodrome information In approximately 1942 the aerodrome was listed at with a Var. 24 degrees W and elevation of . The aerodrome was listed as with three runways as follows:
Post-war (1945–1995) RCAF Station Mont-Joli was decommissioned by the air force in 1945 and became the property of the Department of Transport (now
Transport Canada) on December 15, 1945 for use as a civilian airport.
Current (1995–present) Its ownership was transferred again in 1995 to the "Régie intermunicipale de l’aéroport régional de Mont-Joli". It is the busiest airport in eastern Quebec, though still very far from the
Québec/Jean Lesage International Airport in
Quebec City and
Montréal–Trudeau International Airport in Montreal. In 2007 a second runway (15/33) was opened and runway 06/24 decreased in length from to . In 2017, runway 06/24 was once again extended to , in order to accommodate the
B737-800.
Sunwing Airlines started flying that aircraft type from Mont-Joli to
Punta Cana in December 2017.
Air Canada indefinitely suspended its operations at Mont-Joli Airport in June 2020 due to the financial impact of the
COVID-19 pandemic in Canada. ==Airlines and destinations==