Air Canada - our first 70 years

1948 - Dec 3rd Inaugural flight to Port of Spain from YUL via YYZ provided by Canadair DC-4M "North Star". With stops in the Bahamas and Jamaica making for a 15 hour flight time.

1959
The main hangar at YUL is nearing completion.




1960

• April 1st New numbering system will show aircraft type and route was introduced.
• April 2nd Regular scheduled service with DC-8 equipment introduced between YUL-YVR.
• Dec 3rd Edmonton International Airport officially opened.
• Dec 1st Economy passengers will be served hot meals.on trans-Atlantic flights except those operated by Super Constellation equipment.

1961 Jan 2nd All jet service to Europe, UK began.

1971 - October Due to heavy air cargo traffic, two Vickers Vanguards were brought back from retirement.

1988 - Mar 27th Air Alliance celebrated its 10 year anniversary

TCA/AC People Gallery

Over the past months we have been publishing various photographs from earlier "Horizons", should any photos prompt a memory in seeing one of them, feel free to send us your comments and thoughts.

Musings from "Between Ourselves" magazine

Issue dated January 1972

Here we have a photo of the group who wished Charles Fitzgerald formerly the Passenger Sales Manager New York well in his new appointment of District Manager Boston





Due to popular demand, service awards were reintroduced effective March 1st.

These are the revised designs.











Issue dated April 1972
A meeting of the Flight Attendant Support Groups was held and here are the attendees.



















Who can forget those Mobile lounges at Mirabel Airport (YMX).

Here's a photo to remind you!









Issue dated April 1998
Customer Relations held an open house in February to give other employees the opportunity an inside look at the day-to-day operation of the department.

Here we have this photo of the staff members. 









Staff at Zurich met with our President.

Here we have the group posing alongside aircraft fin nr 633 B767-333 C-FMWU. 




Issue dated May 1998
On May 14th the Star Alliance celebrated its first anniversary. All members of the Alliance paint one of their fleet with names and insignia's of the members.

Here is Air Canada's C-FYLD sporting its colors. 



And here are the guys who accomplished the finished job.








Issue dated October 1953
Mascot of the annual cross-Canada tour of light aeroplane fans "Rocky" did the Winnipeg - Toronto leg with T.C.A.

Here is a photograph of him at Winnipeg airport with Station Attendant Del Horn. 








Issue dated February 1961
The last North Star flies to W.Indies. Inaugurated on December 1st 1948. The last service on January 10th 1961 was Port-of-Spain to Barbados, Antigua and Bermuda under the command of Capt. Roy Renwick and F/O Omelian Korol flt 971.

This and That

"Prestwick Tower enjoys a colorful historic past" was the title in "Between Ourselves" issue November 1959.

The tower was once the home of James Dalrymple, Laird of Orangeville and an early patron of Robbie Burns. The original mansion was built between 1720 and 1834.

Doing things in a big way. The monstrous aircraft shown stretching
from one side to the other behind the terminal at Regina looks suspiciously like a TCA North Star, taken in 1959.



[From Alan] - I found the above photo very interesting so I decided to try to blow it up (don't get concerned ... the photo not the terminal)

You can see the older cars parked out front and I've put arrows (in the thumbnail) to the front and back of the HUGE aircraft in case your didn't notice it in the original. The cars look like 56 Chev, Ford Edsel, Dodge something. Anyhow, I remember the old cars around at the time, but I was only 9 years old then and didn't drive yet. See the 7up sign as well (You like it, it likes you)

The first airport hotel was opened at Heathrow LHR during 1960.
The Skyway Hotel has 160 beds.

Emirates Airline has announced it will introduce its double decker A380 aircraft on its Bangkok and Toronto routes. Effective 1st June 2009, the aircraft will debut in Canada while the new Thai route extends the aircraft's presence in Asia after the successful launch of the A380 on Sydney and Auckland in February.

A different slant on advertising - 999 naked members of the public gathered at London's Jubilee Gardens today to launch Aer Lingus' £9.99 - No Hidden Extras - fare from Gatwick. Over 2,000 people registered, with 999 places offered on a first come basis. In return for taking part, the 999 Nudes received two free return flights to one of the eight new European destinations from Gatwick, such as Vienna.

Air Canada B-767 C-GAUB Fin nr 601  c/n 22517 The final moments of a once-proud jetliner. Throughout her lifetime of 27 years, this old 767 has been a devoted workhorse flying all over North America and logging an abundance of flying hours.

Sadly things went terribly wrong tonight as the aircraft caught fire while being crushed and was completely destroyed.

Here is a photo before the fire. 







Sandy Lodge sends us this message regarding the survivor of the helicopter crash (click here for info) - Robert Decker, the lone survivor of this terrible tragedy, is the son of an Air Canada family member Jeff Decker of St.John's. Please bring this to the attention of your readers and ask that they remember  Robert and his family in their prayers. Robert is still in critical condition. We pray for his speedy recovery and for the families of those lost as sea.  

Starting on Tuesday, 17 March and up to the end of 2009, Air France will be asking those Flying Blue customers who travel most frequently from Paris to Amsterdam to test the new automated boarding system, smartboarding (r). This new system is a world first. With a personal card which contains the latest biometric technology (encrypted fingerprints), RFID (radio frequency identification) and thermal printing (the back of the card can be reused up to 500 times), these passengers will be able to board through a dedicated portal whenever they choose. In a special office at the airport (Paris-Charles de Gaulle Terminal 2F), customers can obtain their personal smartboarding (r) card in just a few minutes which is immediately operational. During registration, all the customer's identity information (surname, first name, Flying Blue membership number), as well as their encrypted fingerprints is transmitted to the smart card. This registration stage is only carried out once and no files are kept by Air France.

Alan's Honey Bucket

I posted this on the ACFamily Network a few days ago and thought I'd share it with our readers here as well.

See the Trees
By William Lambert

I lived in Alabama on a half-acre lot blessed with huge oak trees that were 40 feet in diameter. They were HUGE! The house was laid out so that every bedroom faced the backyard. Each bedroom had a large picture window. The view was breathtaking. I enjoyed just looking at the trees. In the fall I would identify a particular leaf that was falling and watched it for what seemed liked 5 minutes before it fell to earth.

One day I invited this married couple over to enjoy the view from the bedroom window. I took them into the bedroom and excitedly pointed to the trees out of the window and exclaimed, "just look"!

After about 20 seconds there was no comment from the couple. I however, noticed a big frown on the woman's face.

I said, "What's wrong". She was reluctant to reply.

I insisted and again said, "What's wrong?"

She relented and said, "Don't you see those fingerprints on the glass?"

I turned and looked and sure enough there were what seemed to be fifty or more fingerprints on the glass. I ran for the Windex to clean the glass. The lady "Oh, I didn't mean for you to clean it now."

The morale of the story is this. That lady never saw the trees. Even when I tried to point them out, she missed it! I didn't see the fingerprints, as I was looking through the glass, not at it.

When the fingerprints were pointed out to me, I saw them and removed them. The lady never saw the trees because she was instead focused on the fingerprints and never got past them.

Life's much like that. There are things in life that are good and things that are bad. You choose which things you want to focus on. I focus on trees.

What are you focusing on?

Soon after posting the thoughts above on the ACFN, I came across a video that demonstrates what you can see when you take the time to look through the window. How's that for synchronicity!

Please click on the photo or follow this link for the video. Best viewed with your speakers on...

Disclaimer PS - So how is this related to aircraft? On the bottom left corner of the video there is a small blue aircraft image. <VBG>

Canadi>n/CPAir/PWA, Wardair, etc. Events & People

Over the past months we have been publishing various photographs from earlier in-house magazines, should any photos prompt a memory in seeing one of them, feel free to send us your comments and thoughts.

Bill Werbowski sends us this memory and a request - Hi everybody,  Back in the 70\'s and 80\'s we CP AIR employees had a Transcontinental curling bonspiel that moved from city to city.
It was a very popular event that took us to Vancouver, Winnipeg, Banff, Calgary and Toronto to name a few. As with most things , all good things must come to an end. It has come to my mind " Where are the Trophies today"?. I am interested to see where they ended up. There are some very nice one and also one very unusual one.

Thank you very much
Bill Werbowski, [1970-2005]
retired Customer Service Agent CP AIR - Prince Rupert, Calgary, Honolulu,Winnipeg, Toronto;Canadian - Toronto, Calgary:
Air Canada - Calgary. 403-257-1764 This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Perusing "INFO Canadi>n" magazine

Issue dated May 12th 1988

Passenger Agents at the C.T.O. in Ottawa where business is booming.







Henry Li celebrated his 20th year with the company with the rest of the Hong Kong reservation staff.





Issue dated May 19th 1988

Here are nine happy employees from European bases who attended a training course in YVR.





On May 16th, well over 1,000 retirees, spouses, members of both the Pionairs and the PWA Retiree Association from around the world gathered in Vancouver for the first annual joint luncheon.

The airline took delivery of the third B767-300ER at Vancouver on May 12th.

These are some of the lucky employees who attended the ceremonies.














Issue dated May 26th 1988

Waiting at YCD for the Netherlands royal family who were visiting Nanaimo, BC.










Issue dated June 16th

• June 8th Canadian Partner began ATR-42 service between Windsor, Sault Ste Marie, Pittsburg and Toronto.
• June 17th Time Air suspended service between Calgary, Lethbridge and Grand Falls.

Issue dated July 14th 1988
L-188 Electra C-FNAY the ice reconnaissance aircraft inherited from Nordair.




Issue dated July 28th 1988
The end of an era - Canadian Airlines only has three employees left at the South side of YVR in the hangar and office facilities that has been occupied for the past 39 years.

The three are Mario Bulfone, Carlos Matos and Don Ra. Here is a photo of Don and Carlos doing what they do best!













Issue dated September 8th 1988
The heading read "Historic float plane base may once again see glory" and relates the story that one of the largest old buildings at Yellowknife N.W.T. built by Pacific Western Airlines during its use as a float plane base era in the 1940's is being restored.

Here we have this photo from John Anderton of the base in 1955/6,











Wardair has been designated to operate the Canada - Holland route.

Issue dated November 3rd 1988
Referring to the article above regarding the restoration at Yellowknife. It seems the building was, in fact, erected by CP. It seems PWA didn't exist then.

Here we have this photo.

Cathy Parker passed us this information referring to the photo of the teletype operators at Moncton in NetLetter nr 1059 - I worked in Moncton from 1960 - 1970 before transferring to Toronto. Phil's picture was interesting and I believe the girl in the second row, 4th from the left or right (center) is Ruth Severtson (not sure of the correct spelling) but perhaps this will ring a bell with Phil or his wife. Cathy Barker

Bill Norberg shares this memory
Your pictures and note in the recent Netletter nr 1057 & 1060 about the 747 employee recognition flight once again brought back some wonderful memories of the good old days.

The boarding pass Bill mentioned is this one.

Regards  Bill Norberg
:





We have recently mentioned, in the NetLetter,  several incidents in which disoriented pilots were lost, and guided to a safe landing. Here Bernie McCormack has sent us this memory - Aircraft Down
Over the 1970s there would regularly be a Pan Am 747 out of the West Coast of the US and two Air Canada 747s, one from Vancouver and one from the foothills all destined to Europe and ATC (air traffic control) separated by no more than 30 minutes and a couple of thousand feet. Often we exchanged a few words with our company flight and now and then a word to Pan Am. I was the first officer flying with Captain Budd Shane on our flight over the Northwest Territories North of Saskatchewan when we were asked to change over to emergency frequency 121.5 MHz.

Our flight 854 ahead of us told us that there was an aircraft with pilot and four or five passengers on board missing in the area we were approaching, and that they and Pan Am ahead of them had called the aircraft at the request of ATC on this frequency but were unable to communicate with them. They both had heard the click of a radio transmitter but heard no audio and it seemed they were both now flying out of range. I asked Budd if it would be OK for me to give it a try and he said, "sure, go ahead". I knew from the conversation with our other flight that I wouldn't have much time so I called the downed aircraft using their registration letters. When I heard the click of a transmitter I told him who we were and he should hit the transmit button twice if he got the message. "Click click". 

I quickly removed my National Geographic map from my flight bag and checked the area within 200 miles of our present position. At the altitudes we fly the range of reception of a radio signal is about that distance. I said I would start to read off the degrees latitude one at a time and he should give me two clicks for the one closest to them and one for a no. I read them out 60 degrees. "Click". 61 degrees "Click". And so on until I got a click click.

I then broke it down further using the minutes (60 minutes =one degree)(equals 60 nautical miles by the way). We soon had the latitude and then I began to work on the longitude. 108 degrees, 107 degrees until I got a click click.  I checked my map and transmitted that I had a lake at those co-ordinates and named it. Is that where you are? "Click click." I called Winnipeg ATC with the information and they replied a very short time later that search and rescue had the information, had been searching close to one hundred miles East of there and because of the approach of darkness would not get to them that night but would be there at first light in the morning. I relayed the information to the group on the lake for which I received a click click I wished them "good luck" for the overnight.

I circled the lake on the map and printed the registration letters on it and we continued on with a feeling of accomplishment. (We will conclude this memory in the Next NetLetter - eds)

Terry's Travel Tips

INDUSTRY NEWS
More business passengers flying economy says IATA. Increasing numbers of business travelers are foregoing executive class seats and flying economy, especially in Europe. (Hey! Now's the time for contingency travel with a greater chance of an upgrade - eds)

In NetLetter nr 1060 we mentioned a new web site named
www.interlinetravelnews.com with the erroneous implication that "we" had set it up, We wish to advise you that we have no association with this web site, merely passing on a URL with interesting information...

Spring Family Affair special on a number of international markets - book now! Looking to travel to Europe, South America, Australia? Why not take advantage of great Family Affair specials, featuring confirmed travel to all Air Canada-operated European destinations (excluding Tel Aviv) as well as to Bogota (BOG), Sao Paulo (GRU),
Mexico City (MEX), and from Vancouver-Sydney (SYD).  All travel must be completed by April 30, 2009. This Family Affair discount represents 50% off the current AFAMILY fares.

In addition, travel to Sydney, Australia from other Canadian destinations is 40% off.  Details on Family Affair are available on the Employee Travel Site under News & Policies. 

For reservations or inquiries, please contact Call Centres at 1-888 247 2262.

If you are leaving China by air, there's a departure tax of 90.00, payable only in local currency, so be sure you have enough yuan to avoid a last-minute scramble at the airport money changing booth. However, there are plans to include this in the price of the air ticket so check before you fly.
(Source InterlineTravelNews)

Motorhome Packages
Venture west to Vancouver, British Columbia, future site of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games.

Choose from 3 different departure sites:
Calgary to Vancouver, 5 days, 1200kms incl., $99.00
Whitehorse to Vancouver, 7 days, 3000kms incl., $199.00
Halifax to Vancouver, 12 days, 7500 kms incl., $299.00 Unit types: Vary.

Validity: to May 9, 2009.
Inclusions: Insurance, Preparation Fees, Kits (all supplies).
Check  https://www.rumrabbit.com for this offer and many more deals.

Smilies

From the "Between Ourselves" issue dated November 1959




An Ode to T.C.A., we thought this may be of interest.
submitted by Pat Frate a Passenger Agent at YUL.

Apart from Ryanair, the UK LCC airline considering a charge of one euro for the use of their bathrooms,.

Another airline in Europe has suggested that a charge of 50c would be made for use of an oxygen mask should the pressurization system fail, not only that but a charge of one euro to use the emergency exit.

The airline in question  is uncertain how to apply the exit charge, whether to collect before the exit or, to avoid a hold up while passengers look for change, at the bottom of the slides, as the whole crew would exit first to establish the charging facility. Effective April 1st.!