The wait time was longer than anticipated, but we still managed a response within five minutes.
Our driver pulled up in a spotless Sedan. He grimaced slightly towards the amount of baggage at the curb, but managed the task with minimal gripes with the assistance of hotel staff. Save my periodic coughing, the ride into Dorval was basically silent. English did not appear to be the driver's preferred language of communication. Only upon arriving at the terminal did we witness his altercation with airport security regarding drop-off at a depressed curb.
The lineups were managed exceptionally poorly, with passengers gestured left and right through. The airport itself was smaller than expected, possibly the tiniest of all the domestic airports I've ever set foot within. The security screening setup appeared very primitive: line separators positioned at random, feeding people towards the security bins at 90-degree angled turns. Moreover, the area between the after-security shops and screening was delineated by just another row of those line separators.
The action was met with despicable attitude from the screening staff, a young male with long, curly strands. "Miss, didn't I tell you to wait over there?"
I looked at him in surprise, taken back by his unwarranted haughty attitude. "So can I go now?" noting that the gate did not beep.
But he decided to press further. "Did I tell you or not?"
"I'll just walk through again."
This time, the machine beeped. The staff insisted I remove my scarf for inspection, as "my neck was covered". But sheer removal of the scarf wasn't sufficient. He wanted to touch the scarf with evidently filthy gloves. A female member of staff noticed my concern and offered to inspect the scarf with new gloves. I wasn't willing, for I saw no issue with aversion towards others touching my personal belongings without valid reason.
At this point, another member of staff decided to intervene. The second male aggressively pulled aside the plastic barriers and pointed to the snaking lineup from which I had come. He threatened, "You can go back outside and line up and come back when you want to cooperate."
The words being spouted were pure nonsense to me, as if I was being targeted for no reason. I simply couldn't comprehend it, and felt even less inclined to oblige.
When I walked through the gate a second time, a manager - male, of course - asked for the scarf. I handed it over to the female staff, who inspected it and handed it back without issues. "Oh, now you want to give it" screeched the aggressive one, like an immature high schooler.
Next came the issue of boots. Technically, I had no issues removing the boots and passing them through the gates. But the manager and his possé had other plans in mind. "Hand him the boots! Give them to him!" The manager directed.
The boots were repositioned from the near the gate to in front of the staff, who ultimately declared that he "wasn't going to bend down to get (my) boots".
"No matter." I thought, and swung the boots onto a nearby table at waist height. The men did not budge. I wasn't going to oblige. This game of nerves and time-wasting wouldn't be ending with disrespect on my part.
The female staff took the boots, conducted her check and handed them back to me. Putting them back on, I glared at the trio of imbeciles and spat, in my croaky voice, "What's your problem?!".
"There's no problem." assured the manager. Though there clearly was.
YUL was concluded not only smaller than any of the domestic airports I had visited in my numerous instances of national travel, but a lowly, despicable one with poorly designed elements. Even setting the security screening incident aside, I couldn't comprehend that absence of an open lounge/rest area, the positioning of washroom facilities at odd ends of the corridor, and the reason for U.S. connections to be situated after domestic screening procedures.
Our return flight was scheduled for 5 PM, just as our inbound trip had been. By the 4:15 PM mark, we had boarded the aircraft and comfortably assumed our seats. That said, a delayed departure would cause us to remain on the tarmac for at least fifty minutes more.