Aviation Memorabilia Newsletter

Here is the cover of the enRoute magazine issued June 2012.

(Source: enroute.aircanada.com/en/magazine/past-issues)

The new ACE Fly-in executive has wasted no time in getting down to work.

The 1984 Fly-in will be held on Saturday, June 23, 1984. In the event of rain, the date will be moved to Sunday, June 24. The site, along with further information, will be published at a later date.

The new executive consists of:

President: Bill Sanson.
Vice Presidents: P. Phillips, Captain G. Down.
Treasurer:  Captain B. Brennan.
Secretary: Wendy Traviss,  Flight Attendant.
Captain Ray Lank holds the position of Past President while Captain R.A.C. Dennis was named Honorary President.

The executive was elected for a two-year term.

On August 19, 1983 the ''Air Canada Montreal Amateur Radio Group” became a reality.

Back in the spring of 1982. a number of company Hams decided to establish a two-meter repeater facility which would be a local communications link with other airline-oriented 'Ham' employees.

Initial radio checks were made from the top of the 747 hangar at the Dorval Base. The test results were favourable and permission was granted the Company as well as Transport Canada to make use of this location as an antenna site.

A study by Communications Canada showed that there would be no interference to other communications services. Finally, on August 19, 1983 power was switched on and VE2RBI repeater became available for amateur use.

A retirement farewell.

Lewis Woolfrey and John Bennett of Malton Maintenance Base retired during 1984, and their fellow employees held a luncheon in their honour.

Lewis joined the company 31 years ago after serving in the Royal Canadian Air Force and has worked as a mechanic at Malton since then.

John started as a Janitor at the Dorval Base and then worked as an Aircraft Cleaner. He was later promoted to Lead Cleaner at Malton Base and has been with the company for 18 years.

Present at the luncheon were, from the left (standing):

Reg Vye, George Crate, Ted Wysocki, Tom Gardner, Stan Fowler, Jim Vanvlaenderen, Bill Lavers, Doug Hodgson, Lewis Woolfrey, John Bennett, Bill Strain. Jim Davenport, Lynn Zemsta, Bill Shipman, Lynn Cox, Bud Harris.

Kneeling from left:  George Waite, Jim Boutscos, Reg Williamson, Harry Biffen, Ken MacBride, Jack Critchley and Terry Hannon.

Issue dated September 1984.

Air Canada hosts interline party flight.

Air Canada flew 50 members of the London Heathrow Interline Club to Dusseldorf for the day. The interline group hosts regular activities and outings for employees of all the airlines serving Heathrow.

The day's party theme, based on the popular advertising campaign of "Flights so good, you won’t want to get off", put everyone in a jovial mood. The morning departure arrived in Dusseldorf in time for the city tour, courtesy of the Chamber of Commerce. A typical bierkeller lunch followed, and then it was time to return to the airport for the afternoon flight back to London. The photo shows the group of interliners - balloons and all - posed outside the plane before leaving Dusseldorf.

(Anyone remember being on this trip? eds)

T.C.A. Alumni meets.

A lively group of T.C.A. Alumni members gathered in St. Pete's Beach for the 13th annual meeting from October 1 to 3, 1984.

The Breckenridge Hotel was the scene of the festivities. Things got off for an early start with a breakfast hosted by the Alumni fashion show followed, presented by the Breckenridge.

Social Convener, Patti Gehlsen awarded 25 lucky members with door prizes. Then it was time to take care of business matters. Dorothy Millman gave the treasurer's report and elections were held for the Alumni officers for the next two years.

The new committee includes Jim Gehlsen, President; Malcolm MacDougall, Vice President; Sally MacDougall, Secretary/Treasurer; Paul Gehlsen, Social Convener and Helen Moore, Director.

The outgoing committee consisted of Frank and Dorothy Millman, Helen Moore, Jim and Patti Gehlsen and Jim Flack.

A warm starlight evening was the perfect setting for the final banquet. Following the meal, several prizes were awarded and Baldy Torrell won the 50-50 draw.

The Alumni executive thanks all those who attended and looked forward to everyone’s continued support.

Last CRJ flight operated by Air Canada.

It's April 30, 2006. Night is falling in Toronto. Flight AC1081 from St. Louis has taxied to the gate, making it the last Air Canada mainline flight operated with a Canadair Regional Jet (CRJ).

Air Canada took delivery of the first of (25) CRJ aircraft on Sept. 6.1994, in a ceremony held at the Farnborough International Air Show.

As part of Air Canada's growth strategy, the airline has added the EMBRAER 175 and EMBRAER 190 to its fleet and transferred its CRJs to Air Canada Jazz which operates a fleet of (25) CRJ-100, (33) CRJ-200s and (15) CRJ-705s on routes within Canada and the United States.

In our photo the employees who operated the last CRJ flight are (left to right):

Philippe Bouchard, Service Director; Dan Baz, Captain; Hugh Cressevich, First Officer and Marcia Legg, Flight Attendant.

Sydney inaugural.

The December 14 departure of Air Canada flight AC033 on board our new Boeing 777 marked the launch of the only daily non-stop flights between Canada and Sydney, Australia.

In this photo are, left to right:

Catherine Komell, Melanie Passman, Rick Pomery, Judith Metcalf, Jeannie Foster, Kessia Willis (Bear), Kay Russell, Neil Ford, Neil Westaway (Moose), Katina Egleoz and Simone Sticpewich,

Ten Toronto-based flight attendants formed a team, “Friends To The End”, to raise funds for the Canadian Cancer Society’s Relay For Life, on a very stormy Friday in June 2007.

The CMWA – Canadian Maple Wings Association – (a wonderful group of retired Air Canada employees) generously donated $5,000.

With their help, the team of Cathy O’Connor, Holly Weller, Julie Vaillancourt, Joseph Benjamin, Tanya Basra, JP Deverteuil, Janine Deveaux, Karen Prinz, Pamela Baswick and Karen Roberts managed to raise over $11,000.

Air Canada Men's Soccer Club competes in Costa Rica Cup.

On May 4-5, 2007, the Air Canada Men's Soccer Club participated the Costa Rica Cup, an international airline soccer tournament in the Pacific Coast town of Jaco Beach, Costa Rica, southwest of San Jose.

The Air Canada Men's club competed in Pool Play against soccer teams from Costa Rica, SAS Copenhagen, Russia, and US Airways Miami. The Canada club record after four games was one win, one loss, and two ties.

The Air Canada team faced a tough group of teams in its pool and failed to advance to the final day of single-elimination play for the Costa Rica Cup. Better luck next year!

The 2009 edition of the tournament was held May 1-5, 2009 in Jaco Beach. To find out more about the tournament, visit their website at www.costaricacup.org.

(We have this photo, but no names, unfortunately - eds)

Issue December 2010/January 2011. (Used with permission)

When Denise Raymond, Administration Assistant YOW, read about the Air Canada float in the Calgary Stampede in Horizons, it got her thinking. Perhaps there was some way to get the float to Ottawa and modify it for Christmas so that it would have a spot in Ottawa’s “Help Santa Toy Parade.”

Marlene Pipella, General Manager, Customer Relations in Calgary, who in turn worked with Carin Brown, CSSA in Toronto, to organize the transportation of the aircraft portion of the float. Denise then asked her colleagues Mark Proulx, Mechanic, Mike Disalvo, Station Attendant, and CSSA's Jean Guilbault and Suzette Pilon to form a committee.

Together they determined “Destination North Pole” as the theme for the float. GSE provided space to store and decorate the float and colleagues along with family members turned out to decorate. José Rivero, Mechanic, and Mark Proulx rigged the tractor with power inverters providing light for the float and our newly Christmas-themed Air Canada float was sent off in style to the parade. 

• April 27: Air Canada is voted as Canada’s Most Trusted Airline in Reader’s Digest Canada’s annual “Most Trusted Brand” poll.
• May 20: Air Canada is named Best Airline North America international Skytrax Survey
• June 29: Air Canada wins 2010 Agents’ Choice Award for Favourite Scheduled Airline by Travel Press and Travel Courier
• July 8: Air Canada takes home the gold in Executive Travel magazine’s Leading Edge Awards readers’ survey with Best Airline for Flights to Canada award
• July 9: Air Canada’s float wins for Best Corporate Entry and Celebrity Choice Award at Calgary Stampede Parade.
• September 28: Air Canada wins Most Improved Airline of the Year award, and is the only North American airline short-listed for Top Airline in the World for Developing an Onboard Sales Culture award at annual ISPY on-board sales conference.
• October 5: Sanofi Pasteur honours Air Canada Cargo with an award recognizing the success of our cool chain process
• October 8: Air Canada is named Canada’s Preferred Airline by frequent business travellers in an Ipsos Reid survey.
• October 19: Air Canada ties for second place as Business Airline of the Year in the first edition of a new French travel award, Lauriers du Voyage d’affaires
• November 9: Aeroplan and Air Canada win Program of the Year Award at first annual Frequent Traveler Awards Program; we also take top honours in Airline Earning Promotion and Airline Redemption Promotion.
• November 22: Air Canada’s on Air e-zine wins gold for Best e-Newsletter at the seventh annual Pearl Awards in NYC
• December 1: Air Canada is voted North America’s Top Airline in an international survey of more than 25,000 readers of Global Traveler magazine.
• December 10: Air Canada wins five top honours in Business Traveler’s Best in Business Travel award program, the most first-place awards won by any airline in the world in the influential magazine’s annual reader survey.
  • Best Flight Attendants in North America.
  • Best In-Flight Service in North America.
  • Best North American Airline for Business Class Service.
  • Best North American Airline for International Travel.
  • Best Airline Web site.
• December 13: Air Canada is given one of only three coveted Star Alliance CEO Awards, recognizing our 2D barcode innovation and leadership contribution in the industry.

Air Canada Sings!

The news broke at noon on December 7, 2010 — Air Canada’s Glee Club, the Midways, was picked as a top 12 contender to perform on national television in Canada Sings!

'Canada Sings!' is a new reality show debuting in early 2011. It challenges Canadians to form singing groups with their co-workers with the goal of competing in a live sing-off style battle against a team from another workplace.

Meet your Midways! 

This star-studded group of 11 Toronto-based employees includes:

André Antoine, Lead CSA Cargo; Daniel Choi, CSA Cargo; Emilio Fin, Lead Station Attendant Cargo; Brian Florento, CSA Cargo; William Kent, Lead CSA Cargo; Eric Lozynsky, CSA Cargo; Mark Nelson, Manager, Inbound Baggage; Neil Parent, CSA Cargo; Henry Salazar, CSA Cargo; Darian Schouten, CSA Baggage and Matt Ulett, CSA Baggage.