Aviation Memorabilia Newsletter

In February 1942, a Transport Lancaster established a record for a non-stop westbound flight from Prestwick to Montreal.

The pilot being Captain R. M. Smith of T.C.A. and the navigator F/O H. Thomas. The elapsed time was 12 hours and 59 minutes.

Issue dated April 1986.

London's ranch hands.

To reinforce its image as the best carrier to Canada, Air Canada, at London, England, held a series of western style evenings for travel agents.

The evenings took the theme of one of Britain's most popular television shows, 'The Late Breakfast Show', and featured an audio visual presentation of Air Canada's services, a cabaret with singer Rosemary Squires and comedian Chris Lloyd, a Canadian style ranch breakfast and a chuckwagon complete with horse.

The 'breakfast' was served in style by volunteers from Air Canada's reservations staff and passenger agents. They are pictured on board the chuckwagon.

Front row from left: Jenny Ellison, Jenny Brennan, Janet Davis and Ursula York.

Back row, from left: Hilary Pascoe, Nicki Perrier-Flint, Gerald White and Fiona Chatfield. 

Issue May 1986.

Air Canada gained a new partner in Eastern Canada with the acquisition of 49 per cent of the shares of Halifax-based Air Nova.

Winners in the System Photography Show 1986 are shown below.

From the left: front row: John Sanderson; Gerry Philbrook, Manager, Industry Travel and Employee Services, Montreal, who presented the awards; Peter Symes and Roelof Pasveer.

Behind them: Mark Folliot, Mandy Best, Doug Mallory, Louise Tremblay, Vivian Denischuk, Barry Drinkle, Glen Jones, Ken Forsyth and Jean-Pierre Laliberte.

Issue June 1986.

New York route is 45 years old.

On May 10, while crowds in Vancouver gathered to greet the arrival of CF-TCC after its cross-country journey, employees in New York were celebrating the 45th anniversary of the arrival of another Lockheed, CF-TCW. The 14-seat Lodestar arrived from Toronto, making Trans-Canada Air Lines the first foreign carrier with scheduled service into LaGuardia Airport.

In the photograph below, Customer Service Agents and Supervisors in the U.S. reservations sales office joined Michael De Wilde in a cake cutting ceremony.

Standing, from the left, are: George Maclean, Georgia Cronin, Michelle Gowey, Lorraine McNicholls, Ed Frazier, Grace Brucato, De Wilde, Bruce Deitsch, Jeffrey Pack, Jill Wright, Charlene Carr (behind Jill), Flo Olenick, Vincent Chiarello and Gene Schadel.

Kneeling are Kevin Boughton, left, and Tony Ruane.

Ninth Annual General Meeting of the Pionairs took place on May 8 - 11, 1986 at the Red Lion Inn, Bellevue, Washington. Some 600 + retirees and spouses were in attendance.

Returning to office by acclamation President Frank Dunlop; Vice Presidents Jack Somerset and Blake Austin; Secretary Gene Brown and Treasurer Roy White.

It had been decided, after careful consideration that the Pionairs will return to Anaheim for the 1987 AGM, the dates being May 21-24 inclusive. The announcement was greeted with applause.

Issue dated September 2012 (Used with permission).

"Horizons" magazine launched a new semi-permanent 75th anniversary column in the February 2012 edition. We had the first photo of the page in NetLetter #1410. Here is the 2000’s version.

Issue December 1986.

In November 1986, Air Canada acquired 100% ownership of Air BC.

Also, in the same month, Air Canada became the country's first airline to offer advance boarding passes when it launched a type-trial program at selected ticket offices, travel agents and commercial accounts.

Issue February 2013. (Used with permission)

On January 13, 2013, an Air Canada Cargo team won the 7th Annual International Forklift and Pallet Building competition held and sponsored by HACTL HKG, our Cargo handling service provider in Hong Kong!

The team also won the Precision Forklift Driving competition and was second runner-up in the pallet buildup competition.

The Vancouver-based team consisted of Station Attendants Zenabe “George” Gushish, Callum “Gump” McDonald, Warren Reimer and Lead Station Attendant Mike Waller.

This was the first time Air Canada Cargo entered a team in the competition. “The four team members have been working together in Vancouver Cargo for over 10 years. I chose them based on their expert skills, excellent performance over the years and their team-work skills,” says Tony Newton, Manager Cargo Services at YVR.

The forklift competition focused on safety awareness and technical handling of cargo. Drivers were required to collect cargo items and maneuver a congested course. For pallet-building, teams had to build a contoured lower-deck winged pallet following strict rules. Scores were based on build time, build quality and load distribution.

The teams with the lowest number of penalties won. The judges were from Carrier Liaison Group (CLG), Hong Kong Association of Freight Forwarding and Logistics, Nordisk Aviation Products and The Occupational Safety and Health Council.

In our photo above we have left to right: Warren Reimer, Mike Walker, Callum "Gump" McDonald and  Zenabe "George" Gushish.

Introducing Air Canada’s Lowest Price Guarantee.

On February 12, we announced the expansion of our existing North American fare guarantee to cover our entire global network.

The guarantee helps us to attract customers to our website where all our products and ancillary options are clearly displayed, and reduces the associated distribution costs of other channels.