John C. Munro Hamilton International Airport

John C. Munro Hamilton International Airport , or simply Hamilton Airport, is an international airport in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. The airport is part of the neighbourhood of Mount Hope, southwest of Downtown Hamilton and southwest of Toronto. and the "largest overnight express cargo airport" in Canada. Hamilton includes a asphalt runway with centreline lighting for low-visibility operations and a smaller asphalt runway, enough to handle large cargo operations with aircraft such as the Boeing 747 or Antonov An-124.

History

Early history

thumbnail|Map of the airport

Hamilton's first airport was the Hamilton Municipal Airport or Civic Airport at Reid Avenue North and Dunsmure Road (site of Roxborough Park) in 1929. It began as the home to the Hamilton Aeroclub. The Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) became a major user of the airport in the 1930s, but the airport closed in the 1950s to make way for residential development.

In 1940, Mount Hope Airport was opened and became the site of RCAF Station Hamilton. During World War II, the field hosted two units for the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan: first,  10 Elementary Flying Training School (later moved to RCAF Station Pendleton) using the De Havilland Tiger Moth and Fleet Finch, then No. 33 Air Navigation School using the Avro Anson. After the war, the airport gradually shifted towards civil use, until the military ceased using it as a base for Air Reserve operations in 1964.

From 1969 to 1985, Nordair offered jet service from Hamilton to Montreal, Grand Bahama Island and Windsor. City Express flew to Montreal and Ottawa for three months in 1985. Tempus Air offered same route as City Express from 1986 to 1988. USAir began service to Pittsburgh in 1987. By 1988, Pan Am Express flew to New York City and Nationair flew to London, England. Pan Am Express and Nationair stopped their operations at Hamilton in the following year. Canadian Partner began service to Montreal and Ottawa in 1989.

1990s

Canadian Partner's service to Montreal and Ottawa ended in 1991. The consortium consisted of WestPark Developments, Vancouver Airport Authority and TradePort International Corporation Ltd., a subsidiary of Vantage Airport Group, which manages 10 airports.

2000-2010

In 2000, WestJet expanded to Canada's eastern region, choosing Hamilton as the airline's eastern region hub, From 2007 to 2009, Flyglobespan offered seasonal service to the United Kingdom, including Liverpool, Manchester and Doncaster. In 2010, WestJet cut two-thirds of its flights out of Hamilton. The only remaining service by WestJet was one daily service to Calgary.

2010-present

Hamilton saw growth as Air Canada resumed daily flights to Montreal in 2016 via Air Canada Express and WestJet adding service to Edmonton, Halifax and Winnipeg.

In 2017, Hamilton experienced an 80 per cent increase in passengers, to 600,000, which was still well below its capacity of 3 million per year. In 2018, ultra-low-cost carriers including Swoop, Flair Airlines, Canada Jetlines chose Hamilton as a hub for service to the Greater Toronto region. Flair Airlines later shifted operations to Toronto-Pearson in mid-2018 and Air Canada Express again ended its service to Montreal in early-2019. From March to September 2019, Norwegian Air Shuttle operated flights to Dublin, bringing transatlantic service to Hamilton for the first time in over a decade, but ceased operations citing Boeing 737 MAX groundings.

During the COVID-19 pandemic in Ontario, Hamilton airport saw 60% reduction in passenger services over the year 2020 while peak levels of cargo operations were maintained. The airport was a key entry point for imported medical supplies into the country, including Canada's first shipment of the Pfizer–BioNTech vaccine which landed on December 14, 2020 from Cologne, Germany by UPS Airlines.

In January 2023, Icelandic airline Play announced plans to bring flights between Hamilton and Reykjavík in June 2023, re-introducing service to Europe. However, the airline ended this route on April 23, 2025.

Secondary airport for Toronto

Since the 1970s, Greater Toronto Airports Authority (GTAA) and the Government of Canada planned a second international airport for Toronto in Pickering, Ontario, to act as an official relief airport for Toronto-Pearson. Supporters of the plan argued that Hamilton is too far from Toronto to be a reliever, while the opposers pointed out that relief airports for Logan International Airport in Boston (Rhode Island T. F. Green International Airport and Manchester–Boston Regional Airport), for example, are farther from Downtown Boston than Hamilton Airport is from Downtown Toronto. In October 2017, the Pickering City Council supported the development of an airport in Pickering during its joint-bid with the rest of Greater Toronto to host Amazon HQ2. However, a GTAA report in December 2017 suggested that an airport in Pickering was not necessary at the moment and that Pearson can meet demand until 2037. Hamilton charges 30 to 50 per cent lower fees to airlines than Pearson and its compact size makes travel quicker for passengers and allows aircraft to spend less time on the ground.

Airlines and destinations

Passenger