Aviation Memorabilia Newsletter

 

While looking through the historic Wardair fleet, I noticed that they had leased 3 Airbus A300s from South African Airways from 1986 to 1989 while waiting for their order of A310s to begin delivery.

 

Max Ward had lobbied the government for many years for the rights to offer scheduled domestic service. As Mr. Ward explained in 'The Max Ward Story', "be careful what you wish for" as when the rights were finally granted, in 1986, he realized that they needed to acquire additional aircraft quickly. Wardair ordered 12 new A310s from Airbus but delivery was at least a year away.

 

He entered into a lease agreement with South African Airways (SAA) for 3 A300s and received the aircraft in August 1986.

 

C-GIZJ (fin #501) and C-GIZL (fin #502) were returned in March 1989. They last flew for Onur Air of Turkey and have both been scrapped.

 

C-GIZN (fin #503) was the first to be returned, in August 1987, and is the only one of the three still active. It remained with SAA (photo below - registration ZS-SDG) until October 2000 when it was acquired by MNG Airlines of Turkey and converted to cargo configuration. It is currently in service with Moalem Aviation of Kyrgyzstan.

 

Editor's Note by Ken Pickford: I am pretty sure they were the only passenger A300s ever registered in Canada. C-GIZN looks like one of the oldest A300s still in service at age 43.

 

 

Frequent NetLetter contributor, Caz Caswell, met all 3 of the aircraft on delivery and supplied the first two photos photos below.

 

C-GIZN - 'Herbert Hollick-Kenyon'
on its delivery flight to Wardair

YYZ - August 30, 1986

 

The crew that flew the delivery flight.

 

ZS-SDG with South African Airways
Paris Orly - May 15, 1994

 

Photo courtesy of Rémi Dallot

 

 

TC-MND with Ceiba International (operated by MNG Airlines) 
Amsterdam - May 27, 2012

 

Photo courtesy of Christoph Flink