ARI North America General Manager Philip Eckles reports that its flagship 13,000sq ft international store in Montreal Pierre Elliott Trudeau International airport (MPETIA), or Dorval as it used to be known, is now trading at

full capacity.
This follows the closure of Mirabel airport last year and the transfer of that traffic to MPETIA. ARINA commenced operations at its new international store, the largest duty free store in Canada, in June 2005. In December 2005 the airport authority completed all the major refurbishment work and ARI closed its older international stores. Now all passenger traffic is travelling through either the international store or the American trans-border store.
‘Trading was initially quite difficult while the airport concluded its development work. Passenger flows were impacted quite heavily by the construction of the new terminal building. That was concluded on December 22 and since then things are going very well,’ said Eckles.
He said that the trans-border stores have stayed as they are with prospects there improved by the fact that 90% of the duty free business at MPETIA will continue to be conducted on a cash and carry basis and not through gate delivery.