Ken Collie sends this message

I came upon this photo in my desk drawer, it brought back fond memories. We had a good crew and had a lot of fun besides getting a lot of work done.

Ken Collie

The CDN Calgary Component Shop crew in 1994.

Front row: Ken Collie, Bob Reynolds, Ray Hipkin, Terry McDonald, Don Cameron.

Back row: Eric Bjornason, Richard Ellison, Bill Chadderton, John Bossman, Terry Miles, Ray Harris, Aubrey Petit, Chee Hou, Rob Adamchuk, Buck Kleb.

Shirlee Schacter has sent us these photos from the Friends of Front Street recent meeting -

Oct. 31st 2015 was the date of the 14th Annual Friends of Front St. (FoFS) Reunion. There were forty-plus at Hooter's on the Airport strip in YYZ for food, drink and a chance to catch up with old friends from AC's Computer & Systems Services (C&SS) family as well as colleagues from Gemini and Galileo.

Many smiles and hearty laughter as former co-workers reminisced about the "good old" days.... and it wasn't just the locals. Colleen (Rougeau) Vandersteen came in from Winnipeg, Louise Normandeau from Montreal and this time around, Linda from Singapore was even able to make it. We had an "angel" of a server and a great time was had by all! Here we have:

Also at the reunion were Bill Hales, Ted Zubek, Bruce Castator, Lynda Campbell, Wendy (Payne) Walker, Jeannie Lindo, Annie Matusiak, Frank Marando, Rick Morris, Tony Shulist, Diane Knoefel and Brian Speed.

Many of you who couldn't make the 14th Annual Friends of Front St. (FoFS) Reunion at Hooter's YYZ on Sat. Oct. 31st, 2015, mentioned that you would like to see the pictures from the get-together - so here they are!

Please click on the following link to see the complete photo gallery, www.play.smilebox.com Be patient, as it will start after it loads the gallery.

1995 Nov 13th - Inaugural between Toronto and St. Louis.

Four TCA Vanguards in different phases of completion are shown in the photo at the Vickers-Armstrongs Weybridge Works in the U.K. The furthest advanced can be seen in the background with No. 2 immediately behind it in the. Numbers 3 & 4 are in the near bay. The photo was taken February 1st 1960.

From the "Horizons" magazine issued December 1995

Thirteen Air Canada jets left Canada and touched down at airports across the United States on Sunday October 31st 1995, setting a Canadian record for the most new services launched in a single day.

1995 - Oct 29th - Inaugural service between Vancouver to Denver. Los Angeles and San Francisco. Between Calgary to Denver and Houston. Between Toronto to Washington DC, Denver, Las Vegas, Fort Lauderdale, Orlando, West Palm Beach, and Fort Myers and between Montreal to Orlando.

Shown here is the In-Flight Service crew for the Vancouver - Denver inaugural: Bruce Acthim, In Charge YWG; Cheryle Kraemer, Flight Attendant YWG: Susan Davidson. Flight Attendant YYZ and Christine Piechowiak, Flight Attendant YUL.

San Francisco celebrated the start- up of its new service to Vancouver with the crew of  Flight 523.

Pictured here are Jon Moore, In-Charge; Jill Hong. Flight Attendant: Kirk Davis. First Officer; Neville Fong. Manager Customer Service SFO: Captain C.A. McKinnon; Peter McKenna- Srnall. Flight Attendant and Ginger Miller. Regional Sales Manager.

(Note: Denver International Airport named October 31st 2015 as Air Canada day, to celebrate 20 year’s service – eds)

Extracted from the "Altitude" magazine issued March 1989.

New Flight Attendants

(Seated L-R): Marian Peacock, instructor, Heather Barr, Marie-Pascale Raymond, Nadia Beauchamp, Marlies Klolz, Manon Lachance, instructor.

(Standing L-R): Patricia Donnelly, Bernd Krumme, Brenda Bel, Elisabeth Harris, Nathalie Gagnon, Sophie Doucet, Suzanne Dionne, Kelly Whidden, Lucy Chik, Robert Ladouceur, Rachel Cyr, Elizabeth Sutherland, Roberto Moriello.

Gleaned from the "FYI ..." magazine -

A newsletter by and for US Air Canada people - dated December 1971

CHlCAGO - Earlier in this year 1971, Chicago celebrated 25 years flying between Canada and Chlcago and in recognition of this event, Mayor Daley presented our Vice President, Pat Labrie, with a plaque in honor of the occasion.

Shown In the picture at one of the Informal receptions are members of the Chicago staff and Billie Houseman, left, then Chief Stewardess who was on our inaugural flight in 1946 with Gerry Gray, 2nd from the right, who was District Manager in Chicago at the time. Also pictured are Dorothy Mason, Marie Pope, Don Browner, Valerie Manos and Rita Harrigan. Valerie's mother baked the beautiful cake in Air Canada’s honour.

Cleveland office celebrated 25 years of air service by the company and this was the first non-stop scheduled air service from, a foreign country to the Cleveland community. Many functions were held to honour the day and shown are employees of the Cleveland staff who participated in the festivities.

Left to right: Jlm Gedra, Jirn Oprey, Llnda Whaley, Frank Andreas, W. M. Stainton, Ramsay McGregor, 8ob Sedlack, Bernie Diablo, Cheryl Grealls and Angus May.

Seated are Lori Flowers and Ann Gates.

Found in the "Parts and Pieces" Stores magazine issue dated January 1988

The advent of the Economy Class on Air Canada's passenger service in North America occurred on February 1, 1954, and marked the first fare reduction in the airline's history. The new class was called "Tourist" until 1961.

From the top: Donald St. Laurent, Simon Wolf, Paul Murphy, Huy Tran, John Paterson, Mike Gagne, Sylvain Bourbeau and the one and only lady Irene Tsoukatos

Advert for the De Havilland Comet September 1st 1952 (pictured).

1993 - August 18th - PWA board rejected Air Canada ca $200 million offer for international routes etc.

Found in the "Info Canadia>n" Magazine issued dated September 1993

The Insurance department includes, from left, Walter Brown, risk specialist, Larry Weisgarber, director, Barb Robbins, clerk, Steve Anderson, analyst, Nicole Bolstad, receptionist, Gord Wainwright, manager, and Susan Taylor, clerk.

At the Abbotsford Airshow in 1993 were, from left, Dick Hobbis, John Holt, Les Golding, Anne Hutton, John Pineo, Lorne Paterson, Dennis Millette, David Huang, John Benum and David Boyd. Missing was Catharine Covey, Connie Fujino, and Ron Gerroir.

(Note: the heading in the magazine had a misprint showing Abbotsford as Abbortsford we took the liberty of correcting this in our article - eds)

Japan meets Canada via B-767 -

The CP5/CP6 flights on June 26/27, 1993 Vancouver-Tokyo return, were the first ever for a B-767 between Japan and Canada. (it was a one-time only substitution for a DC-10 that needed repairs - the only other time a Canadian B-767 has operated on the Pacific was the Prime Minister's charter in 1991).

The flight departed with 83 per cent passenger load factor and 6,500 kgs of cargo. Customer service agents in Narita here seeing the aircraft off were, from left, Nana Yoshino, Madoka Yamanouchi, Yumiko Mizuhara, Mari Kajiwara and kneeling, Hiroyuki Fukui.

Conclusion of the C & SS saga started in NetLetter nr 1330 -

Jim Campbell tells us about his career -

Glad to see that you are all alive and kicking after all these years, seeing all your names brings back a flood of memories (all good!!). I am still with IBM, but I did manage to get a transfer to Calgary in the summer of 2011 and I am loving every minute of it, only regret is that I didn't move out here 20 years ago.

My wife Brenda and myself spend the majority of our time either camping, hiking or fly fishing as we are only about 40 minutes from the mountains. We also spend a fair amount of time in the summer working with Alberta Parks doing telemetry tracking of the female grizzly bears in Kananaskis Country and working with the Calgary Wildlife Rehabilitation Society. I figure I'm going to work for about another year and a half and them I'm done, going to pack it in and spend all my time outdoors doing the things I love to do... life's too short. Will keep in touch and if any of you are going to be out this way, please by all means drop a line!!

P.S. became a grandfather in Sept!!!

Jim Campbell

Jim Pearce sends this in -

A bit of nostalgia: Here is a picture of my wife Judy and I... married 47 years... two children and 5 grandchildren, retired for 15 years.

Then we have a photo of Kim Sansom and Jim Pearce on a canoe trip in the mid-seventies... notice Kim's shirt.

Then we have a very recent picture of Beth and Kim... notice Kim's shirt... 40 years later and he still has the same shirt!!!!

Steve Charlton says - My turn - an embarrassing sign of the times -

When I went for my interview, working for IBM at the time teaching paying customers about the new IBM370, I was met by two people, some programming manager and his secretary, I guess, who sat quietly and took notes. The manager, Andy McCready, asked very few questions, and told me mostly about pass privileges. When the "interview" was over, he turned for a moment to his secretary, and said, "Lois, do you have any questions?" This quiet lady turned to me and asked, "What do you know about channel programming?" What kind of a question was THAT ??? Who IS this secretary??? Actually I was one of the few who DID know about the subject - Terry Kwizak, Norm Roberts, and Kevin Boyle did not.

I was hired to be Lois' understudy, and inherited the Weather Programme and NSLCTL aka "non-standard line control" (to connect Dorval to the ACNC computer in Toronto). Those couple of years studying with Lois these two programs she wrote were a true privilege for me. I have nothing but praises for that lady - she should have been working for a software development house in the States - yes she smoked, and ran a messy desk, and beat the guys in the hockey pool, but as a tutor and mentor she was the best - kind, gentle, patient, and absolutely brilliant - a couple of my best years at Air Canada... and I thought she was a secretary !!! Macho macho. Steve sent us a photo of himself while in Laos.

Here we have this photo of the C&SS YUL retirees from 1984.

Note: in the back row you can see our very own Terry Baker!

Terrance Ramsay - I recall taking Intro to 360 (?) with one Al Kurys and Al had to take a phone call to answer a skill testing question upon which he won a new car (perhaps a Pinto or a Maverick?)

Al Kurys replied - It was a Pinto! Thank God you and others were there, I was nervous and was the only one who got the question wrong. You guys all corrected me. In hindsight maybe it wasn’t such a great thing, worse car I ever had.

Airline Club of Thailand Presents Japan
08 April 2016
- Deadline to book March 1st, 2016

Price per person:
Double /TWIN Sharing USD 2,700 (15 pax)
Single supplement USD 380
Extra night in Tokyo USD 160 per day approx
In Osaka USD 140 per day approx

1st WACA Fun Games
Vilamoura - Algarve
Hosted by Interline Club of Portugal and WACA
19th - 23rd April 2016
Deadline date: March 15th 2016
Package Cost: 370,00 Euros per person
TWIN/DBLB sharing 70,00 Euros single supplement
Extra-Nights 70,00 Euros (SGLB/DBLB)
Check www.waca.org/events for complete details

New Rogers offer for employees and retirees!
Air Canada employees and retirees benefit from a 30% discount to the in-market "Share Everything" plans that vary by province. Details and how to obtain the offer are on HR Connex > Employee Discounts site > Computer and Electronics.

Statistics show that 81% of today’s airline passengers are carrying a smart phone, which is becoming an increasingly common denominator in all stages of the air travel journey. In fact, for passengers with carry-on bags only, everything in the entire process - from booking to checking in to dwelling in the airport to boarding the flight to on-board entertainment - can be done with a smart phone. The smart phone can enable airlines and airports to provide end-to-end service to passengers. There is a huge opportunity for airlines to utilize smart phones as the glue across the air travel journey.