Len Gauthier sent us this photo - 

Taken at CYUY (Rouyn-Noranda Airport) in 1957. On the left Mr. Cossette, local Molson Breweries agent, Jean Béliveau (Montreal Canadiens), and Guy Mainguy, station attendant.

Len was the Duty Manager at Rouyn-Noranda during the 1980's, working with Denis Perrier, Joseph Wojtczak and Marion Terlecki as Station Agents. Later they relocated to the cargo departments in Mirabel and Dorval.

Air Canada operated DC-9 service in CYUY until 1987 when it was taken over by Air Alliance Dash 8’s. Len was Duty Manager in CYUY until 1983.

Frank Pedder has sent us these photos -

Fun times for Purchasing & Supply, Pionairs YUL District, monthly coffee meeting at the Brasserie Le Manoir, Lachine on June 1st 2017.

From the left: Julian Ireland, Jim Biggs, Leon Kolibaiev and Henry Hall.

ACRA Toronto has its own website

It's finally here - ACRA Toronto has its own chapter website!

To access, go to acraacra123.wixsite.com/yyzacra. Please note this site is for ACRA members, Air Canada employees and retired employees only.

Dragged out of the "Horizons" magazine issue dated August 1981.

An In-Flight first.

A group of Francophones are the first flight attendants in a class to complete a combined four-week in-flight service course and a three week English language course.

The photo was taken upon their graduation, back row from the left: Marie-Josee Bourgeois, Corporate Language Services Manager; Micheline Dupuis, Lynne Comptois, Andree Boutin, Francis Aubin, Cabin Personnel Employment Supervisor.

Middle Row, from left: Yves Lapierre, Lucie Roger, Carole Bourget, Lucie Germain, Suzelle Melot, Ronald Dalbec, Sylvie Drapeau, Jocelyn Labelle, Marie-France Ferron, and Gaetan Deslandes.

Seated from the left: Sylvie Perreault, Chantal Clement along with instructors from AC/CN Linguistic Services, Helen Belair, Jacques Aubin-Roy, Mireille Voyer, Norma Martinello, and Jill Jones.

Heavy traffic on memory lane.

A group of Regional Purchasing & Supply veterans at Toronto International Airport celebrating 25, 30 and 35 year milestones at a gala evening of camaraderie laced with nostalgia.

Shown in the photo of the event seated from the left are: Don Mayo, Rosemary Dart, Cliff Gregory and Ron Haynes.

Standing from the left: Warren Scrivener, Reg Woodcock, Les Stevenson, Bill Brown, Don Wilkinson, Jim Whiteside, Jim Jamieson, Sid Sparks and Bill Ripley. Missing from the photo was Jack Stark.

Issued dated March 1982.

All but two of the 21 Air Canada Recreation Association (ACRA) Presidents met in Montreal hosted by the Montreal ACRA Board of Directors at a get acquainted reception on the evening prior to the meeting.

Harold Miloff, Director, Employee Affairs and Bernie Mller, V.P. Personnel both addressed the gathering,

The attendees are shown from the left: Gisela Hoppert, Frankfurt (standing in for Klaus Berg); Keith Merry, London, England; Bob Browne, St. John's; Frank Jones, Sydney; Brian Murray, Halifax; Rachelle Gallant, Moncton; Joe Holmes, Saint John; Andre Claveau, Quebec City; Diane Drury, Montreal; Bernie Miller; Norm Card, Ottawa; Al Davidson, Toronto; John O'Hare, London, Ontario; Gary Hughes, Thunder Bay; Margaret Livingstone, Winnipeg; Rob Love, Regina; Bob Bateman, Saskatoon; Karen Sargeant, Edmonton, (for Jenny George); Debbie Johnston, Calgary; Corry Smith, Los Angeles; and George Agnew, Vancouver.

Found in the "Altitude" magazine issue dated November 1989.

New flight attendants who had completed their courses during July.

Seated from the left: Chantel Viau, (instructor); Patricia Longtin, Josee Patton, Dimitri Stamadianos, Eva-Marie Sharlock and Marian Laramy (instructor).

Standing from the left: Richard Skrypinski, Laurie Varga, Diane Roy, Alena Hoffmann, Eleni Papadolias, Linda Richards, Isabelle Caron, Simon Lelievre, Kim-Mata Bartsa, Yvon Boisvert, Sandra Goertzen, Antelina Freitag and Christian Giguere.

From the “CP Spanner” newsletter issue dated July 1968.

On June 17th, 1968, Canadian Pacific adopted a new set of international names for its multi-modal spectrum of services. CP Rail, CP Air, (not Canadian Pacific Airlines or CPA), CP Transport, CP Express, CP Ships, CP Hotels and CP Telecommunications. With a range of bright colours that convey vitality and action. Orange was selected for CP Air.

The emblem for the CP range of products was a circle and a triangle. The circle and triangle extending forward from the trailing edge of tail. Diagonal red band, extending down and back from top of cockpit separates orange upper section from remainder of aircraft in metallic silver. Name CP Air applied to forward part of fuselage.

Found in "the Communicator" the Honolulu magazine issue dated August 1970.

Here we found this photo of Jim Rogers, Honolulu Customer Service Manager of CP Air standing before the newly refurbished ticket counter in the lobby.

Captain Dennis Giguere refers to NetLetter nr 1367 and sends this information - re the start-up of Trans-Canada Air Lines. 

The modest fleet was actually 5 Lockheed 10A Electras. CF-AZY and CF-BAF and then CF-TCA, TCB and TCC. CF-TCA is located in the National Aviation Museum in Ottawa and CF-TCC is still In flying condition currently stored in an Air Canada hangar in Winnipeg awaiting relocation back to the Royal Western Canada Aviation Museum in YWG.

Of interest is the fact that my late father, Captain Rene Giguere took delivery of CF-TCC on January 6, 1938.

Captain Dennis Giguere, retired

Regarding the photo of the Jim Finlay luncheon in NetLetter nr 1367, Tony Coleman sends these corrections -

Photo of London staff with Jim Finlay, two names incorrect Derek Burell should read Derek Buckell & David Broad should read Peter Broad. Regards Tony Coleman

We show the corrected photo and details –

In the photo they are simply listed ‘left to right’ (no “back row” or “front row”): Roy Ledgerwood, ‘Cec’ McDonald, John Buchanan, Barry Stride, Tony Coleman, John Searle, Helen Hutton, Jack Helsby, Ken Banks, Jim Finlay, Gary Evans, Dave Dougans, Derek Buckell, Bill Ferguson, Doug Stewart, Gib Sale, Alan Horabin, Ken Fletcher, Bob Williamson, Peter Sutherland, Peter Broad and Brian Sygrove.

London City Airport (LCY), popular with business travelers, will become the first airport in the U.K. to install a digital control tower, the airport has announced. The tower will be equipped with 16 high-definition cameras that will transmit data to a control center in Swanwick, Hampshire, about 100 miles away, where air traffic controllers will do their job off-site.

Apparently SAAB has two towers in Sweden using the system already and they will build the City Airport system.

Boarding passes could someday become quaint relics for air travellers.

JetBlue Airways plans to test facial recognition check-in for a few flights beginning later this month, and Delta Air Lines plans to let some passengers board with their fingerprints instead of a boarding pass.

The once ubiquitous paper boarding pass is already shunned by many travellers who prefer to use mobile boarding passes on their phones. Now pilot programs could render those obsolete too, as airlines aim to increase convenience for customers, and government agencies look to increase security.

During the Pionairs AGM held recently in Vancouver, Leslie-Anne Vezina, Manager of Travel and Recognition announced that active AC employees have a flight load APP for their smart phones/tablets that provides flight load information with high accuracy up to 2 hours to flight time.

Leslie-Anne advised that Pionairs and retirees can expect this APP by later this month.

Memories by Lois North which were passed along, verbally, during the Pionairs AGM, April 30th, 2017 - Vancouver to Terry Baker of the NetLetter.

One of the joys of flying in the Maritimes - (this was back in 1958). I was the only Stewardess on the North Star from Sydney to Montreal and a man got on in Halifax, an elderly man, he was probably younger than I am now but he got off, and when he got back on again, (this is before we had gates) he handed me a dollar bill and said "I want to tip you". I said "that's very kind of you but we are not permitted to take tips" and he seemed a bit crestfallen. Anyway, we went to St. John's and he got off again and when he got back on he had his hand behind his back as I greeted him and he said "If you can't take money, can you take these?" and he handed me a bouquet of wild flowers that he had picked along the way back to the aircraft. I thought it was a very insignificant thing but it stayed with me for years.

There were other times all fun.

I remember we were taking an airplane from Halifax to St. John's and we had come in on a regular flight. There were just two guys and myself. Just before we left the airport, crew scheduling called and told us they needed the aircraft. Whether they had a cancellation or what we didn't know, anyway, we just wheeled around back to the airplane again and I ended up sitting up front with the flight crew, sitting in the jump seat. There was nobody in the back. We were over Cape Breton and all of a sudden the old North Star gave a real good “whoomp” and we lost an engine. I kind of looked up and I can't remember who the pilots were now, but the F.O. looked over and said "Oh it's Ok, we just lost one, but we have three others out of the four”.

Later I told one of my grandchildren and they said "Was there any problem when it fell on the ground?" I said "No it just means an engine did not work, it did not fall off". (see Engline Failure in "Smileys" below)

Here's another memory... My husband (he was a Captain) used to fly the lobster run between Stephenville and Boston and if they had extra lobsters in Stephenville, he would buy them, maybe 20 or 30 pounds and he did this all one summer. Many times he would come home with lots of lobsters so we bought a special garbage can to use just for cooking lobsters, but it took awhile to get the water boiling. It was common practice on his way back to Montreal he would call crew scheduling to say he was in-bound and ask them if they would they please call Lois and tell her to put the garbage can on, " I'll be home for supper".

Now how many (that was in 1953) years later - well maybe 40 years later - we were at the TCA alumni at the initial opening and we had been to the Pionairs original meeting. We stayed on for the TCA one and I am sitting in the bar and there is a crew scheduler who I used to know in Montreal who logged most of the flights out for us and he said "You know Lois, I always liked your husband
Captain North very much, but there was one thing that really bothered me, he would say "Would you call Lois and tell her I will be home for supper and put the garbage can on".

The crew scheduler said "I considered that most disrespectful". Of course that was also the "code" for me (Lois) to get on the phone and call up our neighbours, who were also Air Canada people, to come over for lobsters - we had lots of fun.