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Subject: [The NetLetter] NetLetter nr 809 Feb 1/04 - The NetLetter
Date: Sun, 01 Feb 2004 10:39:05 -0800
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T H E _| TCA |_
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N E T L E T T E R > CANADA <
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( For retirees of the new Air Canada family)
Number 809 Feb 1st., 2004. We first published in October 1995.
Circulation: 2700+
Chief Pilot - Vesta Stevenson - Co-pilot - Terry Baker
To get in touch with either editor/pilot our email address is
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. Must know.
It’s recently come to the attention of the Employee Travel and
Recognition (ETR) team that some employees are inputting names with accents
when nominating a partner or a non-dependent child. While it will not be
obvious that a problem has occurred, an error message will be generated in
your travel profile which could lead to difficulties when next accessing
ETS. Until this issue can be resolved, the ETR team asks that you fill in
the names without an accent. Your patience is appreciated.
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. Need to know.
The code required for the discount at the Park n Fly at various airports is
3 1 0 3 3 .
You will be required to present your Air Canada identification card.
This code was omitted from NetLetter nr 808 to keep it from the public
domain, but the code has since been issued in a Pionairs email newsletter.
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. Air Canada news.
On January 27th, Call Centre employees (represented by the CAW) were
advised of the detailed layoff plans for 307 employees located in Saint
John, Toronto and Winnipeg which will take place in two phases on Feb. 28
and Apr. 18. Further staff reductions are anticipated by the end of 2004 as
various automation projects are implemented. These reductions were
announced earlier in the year as part of Air Canada’s restructuring plan.
“I would like to thank all employees for their support through this very
difficult time and extend my best wishes and hopes to those employees who
will be leaving us,” said Gordon Young, Senior Director, Call Centres.
(We hope this doesn't develop into a situation similar to what the public
experienced with TELUS - eds)
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. Star Alliance news.
SAS Group warned of major flight disruptions today(Jan 30th) after the
collapse of negotiations with the Swedish Air Transport Industry Employers'
Assn. and the Swedish Transport Workers' Union over contracts for flight
technicians, mechanics and baggage handlers.
Air Canada and Star Alliance partner bmi, announced their participation
in a joint venture that will offer non-stop Toronto-Manchester service,
beginning April 25. This service will initially operate four times a week,
increasing to daily on May 28 for the peak summer season. This joint
venture is great news for transatlantic business travellers as, together
with bmi, we can now offer customers an improved schedule between our main
hub in Toronto and the northwest UK. In addition, our customers will enjoy
enhanced connections via Manchester to points within the UK served by bmi
as well as via Toronto to and from Air Canada’s extensive network in Canada
and the U.S. Seats on the new service will be available for purchase Feb. 3.
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. News from the Districts -
From Gerry Damskov Director Okanagan District Pionairs
Hi to all Air Canada Pionairs:
HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ONE AND ALL. We hope you all had a healthy and joyous
Holiday Season.
We have some exciting events in the Okanagan District, coming up for this
year.
Here are the details for our February (Valentine) function to be held at the
Coast Capri Hotel on February 14th. The address is: 1171 Harvey Ave.
Kelowna, BC. V1Y 6E8. Meet and greet will be at 11:00 A.M. with lunch to be
served at 12:00 noon, the meeting will begin at 1:00 P.M. Cost for the
luncheon is $18.00, however, our Pionairs & guests will pay $15.00 and the
Okanagan District will pick up the difference. Menu consists of: "young
romaine heart with artichoke heart and cherry tomato salad", "a petit salmon
fillet, with a maple-dijon drizzle" and "orange grand marnier creme carmel"
for dessert with Coffee, Tea and Water. There will be no bar, however if you
want Alcohol, Beer or Wine it can be ordered from your waitress. Deadline
for receiving your Cheques and / or cancellations will be February 10th.
There will be a 50/50 draw and door prizes. Please make your checks payable
to: "Air Canada Pionairs" care of our Treasurer (Gretchen Aird) and mail to:
Gretchen Aird #317-1056 Bernard Ave. Kelowna, BC V1Y 8L7
(If you commit to this event, due to Restaurant charges you will be
responsible
to pay if you do not show up).
Mark your calendars for future events. The National AGM will be held on May
21-23 2004 in Edmonton.
June the 22nd. will be our Barbecue at Sun Oka in Summerland, details to
follow at a later date. Details of our September and December functions will
also be forthcoming.
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. Found on the internet -
When Flying Was Caviar...this is so nostalgic!
Those were the days.
IF you happened to be walking in Midtown Manhattan one weekend last
October, you
could be excused for having a flashback. A crew of blue-suited skygirls
marched into the Roosevelt Hotel outfitted in the familiar Pan Am uniforms that
exist now only as airline history.
Some 600 women from all over the world had flocked there for a
convention of former Pan American World Airways flight attendants, a
gathering they have held each year since 1970. Roughly age 45 to their 70's,
they reminisced about bygone days and wore bygone uniforms.
One of them, Marie Tango, wore a skirt suit, white gloves and stockings,
and an elegant pillbox pinned to her hair. Another, Lea Sarlande, wore a
powder blue jacket over a white Pan Am blouse she first wore in 1958.
Pinned to her jacket was the heavy brass pin that identified her as a
purser, or chief stewardess.
Other guests at the Roosevelt did double takes as the anachronistically
outfitted airline alumnae milled about. One man asked if Pan Am was back
in business; another began a blushing reminiscence about a Pan Am stewardess
he once surreptitiously dated.
No, Pan Am, which went out of business in 1991, has not been revived, but
its golden years - the 1950's and 1960's - remain vibrant in the memories of
its former flight attendants, who make up World Wings International.
This philanthropic group of former stewardesses all worked the skyways
before stewardesses became flight attendants, before the women's movement,
before airborne luxury was edged out by low fares and frequent flier miles.
Then, flying commercial was elegant, elite. Passengers were well dressed
and well coiffed and left their crying babies at home, and the stewardesses
who pampered them were glamorous.
Before the 747 and the DC-10, long before the Concorde, Pan Am operated
Clippers and Stratocruisers. The Clipper had dressing rooms, a bridal suite,
overnight beds and a dining salon and lounge. The Stratocruiser, in
operation from 1947 to 1960, offered spacious luxury. A spiral staircase led
to a plush sit-down bar in the belly of the plane.
The deluxe first-class service, called the President's Special, offered
seven-course meals with china and table linens, caviar and hors d'oeuvres.
Lamb chops or Dover sole were prepared in galley ovens. Hot carts were
wheeled down the aisle and stewardesses cut slices of prime rib at
passengers' seats.
''I was a small-town girl from Massachusetts," recalled Anne Sweeney, who
began working for Pan Am in 1964 on its 707's. ''I had never eaten a
multicourse meal." Suddenly, she was getting a crash course in fine dining.
Meals were prepared from recipes provided by Maxim's.
Mrs. Sweeney, who owns a public relations company in New Jersey and is
working on a novel she calls "Out of the Blue: The Memoirs of a Pan Am Flight
Attendant," fondly recalled visiting countries like Cambodia, Iran and
Lebanon before they were opened up to tourism.
Applicants came from small towns or cities in the United States, or Europe
and Japan. Many of them had never flown. A college education was required,
as was fluency in a language beside English. Stewardesses were expected to
be young, beautiful and single. There were strict appearance requirements.
Women had to be at least 5 foot 2. (The only exceptions were Hawaiian
women, who were desirable for their exoticism and ability to speak
Hawaiian.) A 20-year-old woman who was 5 feet 4 could weigh no more than 130
pounds. Stewardesses were allowed to gain a few pounds as they approached
the mandatory retirement age: 32.
Mrs. Sweeney recalls being exactly 5 foot 4 and weighing 112 pounds when
she applied. She earned $7,000 her first year, she said, more than any
member of her college class.
Stewardesses could not be married or have children. Sylvia Farrington of
Manhattan, began at Pan Am in 1951. She married in 1957, she said, "and that
was the end for me. They gave me six months' notice and told me I couldn't
wear my wedding ring while I was working."
Pan Am uniforms were made by top designers, including Pucci, Adolfo and
even Edith Head. Rita Kaiser, who began working for Pan Am in 1963, arrived
at the convention in a uniform from the 1980's designed by Adolfo, down to
the red, white and blue scarf.
''They had to make them loose enough to reach to the overhead
compartments," she said, and she much preferred the suit to the uniforms of
the early 70's: knee boots and short skirts or hot pants.
No stewardess could wear more than one ring. The uniform had to be crisp,
lipstick the specified hue of red and hair cropped above the shoulders.
Girdles were required.
''When you fly, the air pressure could make your belly swell," Mrs.Kaiser
explained. ''They didn't want that."
The uniforms and other Pan Am memorabilia - china, flatware, glasses,
menus, photos and flight bags - form a popular genre for collectors. One
such collector, Kelly Cusack of New York, a former Pan Am employee, gave a
presentation at the convention, showing off his silver tea sets and other
items. A porcelain demitasse from Pan Am's flying boats is worth $550, he
said. ''If you need one piece with a particular pattern to complete a dinner
set it can cost $1,000," he said. Suddenly spotting a group of women
handling his rare commemorative plates, he dashed off to protect them.
For all of Pan Am's stringent rules in their day, the women at the
convention were overjoyed to have the job, they said. Suddenly they had the
prestige and cachet approaching that of a model or actress today. ''We were
the original super-models," Ms. Sweeney said. ''There was this image that, on
every important man's arm was a beautiful stewardess. When you got the job,
you got your picture on the front of the papers. You'd spend a week in
Africa, a week in India. When you told somebody you were a Pan Am flight
attendant, they were all like, 'Wow!' "
Sheila Riley recalled serving the Beatles and Winston Churchill. ''I
remember once when Danny Kaye was flying with us, he got up with us and was
cooking meals in the galley," she said.
Mrs. Sarlande who was hired from Paris in 1958 and worked until 1965,said
she regularly served Charles Lindbergh. ''I'd bring him breakfast and put a
blanket on him," she said. ''He didn't drink and he didn't smoke and he
didn't talk to anyone."
Many of the attendants used their connections and experience to start
second careers after Pan Am. Some became travel agents, designers,
restaurateurs and executives.
Mrs. Sweeney and others said they preferred the good old sexist days to
more modern flying when aisles meant hawking headsets and minibottles of
liquor and keeping the peanuts-per-passenger ratio as low as possible.
The days before the concerns were shoe bombs and stun guns.
While most of the job was luxury travel, it could have a more serious side.
Pan Am occasionally volunteered planes and crews for government missions,
including evacuation flights and relief and outreach programs.
"In those days, things weren't all automated; they gave you a hug and a
kiss and said, 'Just get the plane back safe,' " recalled Kerstin
Parlander, a native of Sweden who began working for Pan Am in 1965. "You
were on your own, and it was a huge adventure all the time."
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Canadian Aviation Historical Society, Vancouver Island Chapter friends and
members,
A Chapter meeting will be held, January 27, 2004, at 13:00 hrs. in the
Norseman Room at the British Columbia Aviation Museum, 1910 Norseman Road,
Sidney.
** Annual General Meeting and election of officers for 2004.
**Chapter memberships for 2004 are due. ($10.00) This separate from the
National dues which are $35.00.
**Guest Speaker: Ian Waterlow, who will speak about his experiences during
WWll with the RCAF 417 Spitfire Squadron in Italy.
**Lunch at Mary's 11:30 hrs. contact Stoney 250- 487-7567 if you wish to
attend.
Jacqueline Frampton, Treasurer and Membership
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" ' "
. From the Pionair newsletter issued by Gordon Dalziel -
Planning to send a Parcel - Remember Fed Express
A Pionair Members experience you may be interested in the employee/retired
cargo example of a parcel I sent in early December.
3.0 kgparcel about 1ft square in size. $7.85 YVR to PDX ( Portland)
Fuel surcharge .45
Security charge 15.00
Navcan fee 3.00
Total 26.30
US Customs broker charge (PDX)
$20.usd @ 1.30 26.00
Total 52.30
The same parcel shipped by FedEx with the employee discount:
Next day ground delivery, Reg $115.00 less 75% emp. disc = $ 28.75
Economy 2 day delivery. Reg. $73.00 " " " " = $ 18.75 So it's better to
ship FedEx or Canada Post.
FedEx rate by air have the fuel surcharge built-in, so their rates are
all-inclusive.
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. May day!
Subject: Car Rentals
Any info on reduced rates for renting a car at
Kahului Airport in Maui. We hope to go there with some family members in
March but I've been shocked at the prices of car rentals since last time I
was there. Seems to me I used to have a corp number or some such for
airline people. Any information would help. Thanks, Ruby Livingston
"Wyc & Ruby Livingston" <
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. Terry's travel tips.
Dargal has these deals -
REMEMBER... THE FOLLOWING CRUISE RATES INCLUDE PORT CHARGES!
Taxes, fees and Dargal’s $20 Service Charge per room are additional.
*** EASTERN CARIBBEAN ***
January 31 ~ 7 Nights ~ Holland America ~ Zuiderdam
ITINERARY: Fort Lauderdale, Florida; return
Interline Best Available $499, Interline Verandah $599
Friends & Family Obstructed Outside $449, Friends & Family Verandah $599,
Friends & Family Suite $999
February 1 ~ 7 Nights ~ Holland America ~ Oosterdam
ITINERARY: Fort Lauderdale, Florida; return
Interline Verandah $599
Friends & Family Inside $449, Friends & Family Obstructed Oceanview $499,
Friends & Family Verandah $649, Friends & Family Suite $849
February 8 ~ 7 Nights ~ Celebrity ~ Millennium
ITINERARY: Fort Lauderdale, Florida; return
Interline Inside $400, Interline Oceanview $500, Interline Verandah $650
Friends & Family Inside $772, Friends & Family Oceanview $934, Friends &
Family Verandah $1314, Friends & Family Suite $2074
February 15 ~ 7 Nights ~ Royal Caribbean ~ Radiance of the Seas
ITINERARY: Fort Lauderdale, Florida; return
Interline Oceanview $449, Interline Suite $799
Friends & Family Interior $1004, Friends & Family Oceanview $956, Friends &
Family Balcony $1289, Friends & Family Suite $1906
*** SOUTHERN CARIBBEAN ***
February 27 ~ 7 Nights ~ Celebrity ~ Galaxy
ITINERARY: San Juan, Puerto Rico; return
Interline Inside $400, Interline Oceanview $600
Friends & Family Inside $482, Friends & Family Oceanview $682, Friends &
Family Verandah $1052
*** WESTERN CARIBBEAN ***
February 7 ~ 7 Nights ~ Royal Caribbean - Navigator of the Seas
ITINERARY: Miami, Florida; return
Interline Interior $399, Interior Oceanview $499, Interline Balcony $649,
Interline Suite
Friends & Family Interior $733, Friends & Family Oceanview $885, Friends &
Family Balcony $1256, Friends & Family Suite $1569
February 8 ~ 7 Nights ~ Royal Caribbean ~ Radiance of the Seas
ITINERARY: Fort Lauderdale, Florida; return
Interline Interior $399, Interline Oceanview $499
Friends & Family Interior $629, Friends & Family Oceanview $990, Friends &
Family Balcony $1056, Friends & Family Suite $1531
February 14 ~ 10 Nights ~ Holland America ~ Volendam
ITINERARY: Fort Lauderdale, Florida; return
Interline Best Available $529
Friends & Family Interior $649, Friends & Family Outside $749, Friends &
Family Verandah $1249
*** MEXICO ***
February 7 ~ 7 Nights ~ Holland America ~ Ryndam
ITINERARY: San Diego, California; return
Interline Inside $399, Interline Outside $499
Friends & Family Inside $429, Friends & Family Outside $449
February 20 ~ 10 Nights ~ Celebrity ~ Mercury
ITINERARY: San Diego, California; return
Interline Inside $630, Interline Oceanview $680
Friends & Family Inside $818
April 11 ~ 7 Nights ~ Royal Caribbean ~ Vision of the Seas
ITINERARY: Los Angeles, California; return
Friends & Family Oceanview $790, Friends & Family Balcony $1455, Friends &
Family Suite $1740
Cruises: Rates are quoted in U.S. dollars per person (based on double
occupancy). PORT CHARGES ARE INCLUDED.
Taxes, fees and Dargal’s $20 Service Charge per room are additional. All
rates are subject to change, availability and eligibility. All offers apply
to new bookings only, are capacity controlled and may be withdrawn without
notice.
For more information on these and other Dargal Interline specials:
Call Toll Free: 1-800-690-3223
International Toll Free: (International Access Code)-800-2832-7425
Fax: (250) 861-3283
E-mail:
Open weekdays 8 am to 11 pm (EST)
Saturdays 10 am to 9 pm (EST)
Sundays 11 am to 8 pm (EST)
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Important reminder, for all new articles, submissions and or comments
for the "The Netletter" please send to:
Our joint e-mail address is:
please add to your Address Books.
This e-mail address has been set up so that both of us (exclusively)
will get an automatic copy and so we can keep up with the continuity of
news for the NetLetter.
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