Aviation Memorabilia Newsletter

From the "Horizons" magazine issue dated October 2008.
(with permission)

Beijing departure ceremony honours Olympic athletes

To honour Canadian Olympic athletes departing Beijing on August 25th on our special charter flight, Beijing’s Olympic readiness team headed by Cathy Zhu, General Manager – China, organized a special send-off ceremony to the delight of all involved.

In this photo, the Beijing station team, back row, left to right: Robin Luo, Dewey Du, David Yang, Leo Wu, Marc Leblanc, Naoki Hashimoto, LiQiang Hao, Michael Song, Edward Hu, Cp Lee, Cathy Zhu, Lisa Li and Mario Han.

Front row, left to right: Alan Niu, Mandy Wang, Rene Fan, Jane Chen, Mary Zheng, Isabelle Gauthier, Kelly Zhang and Reno Li.

Issue dated February 1982.

A couple of Winnipeg ramp employees were honoured at a luncheon where they received company citations for their brave action taken to extinguish an aircraft fire.

The fire was discovered in the cargo hold of of a flight as it pulled up to the ramp. While passengers quickly deplaned, Bill Badger, Ramp Supervisor and Bill Bright, Lead Station Attendant struggled to position the fire extinguisher at the door of the cargo hold.

The pair finally managed to empty the contents of the fire extinguisher into the cargo hold. This act contained the fire until the airport fire fighters arrived on the scene and put the fire out.
(ywg-citation.jpg)

Pictured at the luncheon are, the left: Leo Hubberd, Airport Manager, Winnipeg, Bill Bright, Bill Badger and Bob Nicholson, General Manager, Manitoba.

In 1982, there were 21 Air Canada Recreation Associations (ACRA) made up at the following stations -

St. John's, Newfoundland; Sydney; Halifax; Moncton; Saint John, New Brunswick; Quebec City, Montreal; Ottawa; Toronto; London, Ontario, Thunder Bay; Winnipeg, Saskatoon; Regina; Calgary; Edmonton; Vancouver; Los Angeles; Nassau; London, England and Frankfurt.

Checking with the web site for ACRA, there are sadly now only 10: Halifax; Montreal; Toronto; Ottawa; Winnipeg; Calgary; Edmonton; Vancouver; London, England and Frankfurt.

Zurich carries a heavy load.

Zurich cargo employees from the left: Ruth Engeli, Cargo Agent; Rolf Holderegger, Cargo Sales Manager and U. Bandi, Cargo Accounting Agent had good reason to smile.

For the first time in the station's history more than a million pounds of cargo was carried from Zurich to Canada and the U.S. in a one month period. This was achieved in October and again in November of 1981.