ST. LOUIS (KMOX) - Daily non-stop flights from Lambert International Airport in St. Louis to Montreal, Quebec, Canada officially began on May 2.
As part of the celebrations of the new non-stop flight, St. Louis officials, which included St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones and St. Louis County Executive Sam Page were part of a group that went on the inaugural Air Canada flight to the city of Montreal, where they participated in a five-day trade mission.
"What I always say is when we take these trade missions, I put our participants to work." said Tim Nowak, Executive Director of World Trade Center St. Louis to KMOX's Michael Calhoun on Total Information A.M. Wednesday. "With any of these trade missions, you hit the ground running and you don't stop until you get home. It was a whirlwind five days."
Nowak says the moment they touched down in Montreal, St. Louis officials were immediately busy, from holding a press conference for local Montreal media upon landing, participating in roundtables and breakfasts about doing business in St. Louis with local Montreal business leaders and even went to look at Boeing's Canadian operations.
"Not only do we want businesses, we want Montreal citizens and the Quebec community to come and see St. Louis and see all the things the city has got to offer," said Nowak. "It was really a great journey with this delegation."
Nowak says the trade missions are a good opportunity for business leaders in Montreal to not only learn more about the city of St. Louis, but also show the success St. Louis has had on the business end.
"You can just imagine there were a number of companies that just wanted to learn more and we'll see. This thing takes time to evolve and process," said Nowak. "But it was, it's a really good opportunity to sort of talk about what makes Saint Louis special and what industries have have had success here."