The NetLetter
For Air Canada Retirees
(Part of the ACFamily Network)
January 30, 2014 - Issue 1291
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First Issue published in October 1995!
(over 5,400 subscribers)
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NetLetter Past Issues
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Donation Information
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Send cheques payable to "ACFamily Network" to:
ACFamily Network
#800 - 15355 24th Ave, Suite 523
Surrey, BC V4A 2H9
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Sponsors
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Welcome to the NetLetter!
We welcome you to allow the NetLetter to be your platform, and opportunity, to relive your history while working for either TCA, AC, CPAir, CAIL, PWA, AirBC, Wardair, etal and share your experiences with us! 
Terry Baker and the NetLetter Team
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| TCA/Air Canada People Gallery - Compiled by Terry Baker |
Below we have musings from the "Between Ourselves" and "Horizons" magazine, Air Canada publications from years gone by, as well as various in-house publications.
The NetLetter has been fortunate enough to have our readers donate vintage Trans-Canada Air Lines and Air Canada publications from as far back as 1941 to share with you. These have been scanned and are being prepared for presenting in a special area of the ACFamily Network for archival and genealogy research.
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Issue dated - July 1978
Some items gleaned from the "Horizon" magazines.
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 New service starts
Direct non-stop DC-9 service between Sydney, N.S. and Toronto began June 23, 1978 with the inaugural of Flight AC607 Sixty-six passengers traveled on the first flight and were presented with carnations and served complimentary champagne with their steak dinner to mark the start up of this daily service.
On hand for the first flight were, from the left: Purser R. Lauzon; Reservations & Sales Office Manager L. Morrison; Flight Attendant Judy Neher; First Officer A. Cockle; Flight Attendant Anne Perejma; Captain Carl Pigeon; District Manager Ken Gordon and Len Tardif; Regional Commissary & Catering Manager, Montreal.
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 New York honors four...
New York staged a bash for four gentlemen who achieved 25 years with the company June 1978. Lined up behind the cake are, from the left: Art Suffron, Regional Sales & Service Manager, Passenger who actually celebrated 30 years if his military time is included; Steve Pisni, Area Public Affairs Manager; Pete Pemberton, General Manager, South; Ron Vigars, Regional Human Resources Planning and Training Manager and Pat Labrie, Vice President, U.S. & Southern Region who passed that milestone himself some seven years earlier, more than qualifying him to make presentations to the assembled youngsters.
Capping the ceremony. the honored four saw themselves as young men through blown up photos taken in earlier times. The rumour that Ron Vigars devoured half the cake himself apparently is untrue.
1978 - June 19th - Inauguration of the L1011 Western Arrow service to the U.K. Second Officer was Wayne Birkett, a former Station Attendant at Saskatoon. Wayne took his pilot training at Saskatoon then joined Norcanair before joining Air Canada. Hugh McEligot was the District Manager when the flight touched down at Saskatoon.
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Issue dated - Jan/Feb 1980
Some items gleaned from the "Regional News" magazines.
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 CATERING SERVICES COORDINATORS INSTALLED
The positions, Catering Services Coordinator, was announced by Barry Kerr, regional commissary & catering manager, they were located in Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, and New York. This was a first for U.S. stations and if you think the function is easy, in addition to a rigorous training period, the appointees will be responsible for thousands of pieces of equipment. Most people would be surprised to know that a typical B747 aircraft has in excess of 15,000 individual pieces of equipment boarded in the cabin and galleys.
The appointments were effective March 3rd,1980. Pictured from the left are: Tom Branick, LAX; Bob Donath, JFK/LGA; Barry Kerr; Rockey Patane, MIA; and Diane Kleiman, ORD.
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 During July 1979 Dotty Gibau and Kathy Gabriel, res. agents in New York, attended the Air Canada Soft Ball Tournament.
They enjoyed it so much they decided to found a N.Y. team and promised they would play in the 1980 event. Fourteen girls joined "The Apple Corps" and with the help of their coaches, Ed Frazier, res. agent, NYC., and Dave Crisman, psgr. svc. spvsr., LaGuardia, they were ready to play. The players... Kathy Gabriel, Dotty Gibau, Maureen Galvin, Lucie La Palme, Kathy Zoeller, Carol Zoeller, Nancy Osiecki, Pat Conlan, Doreen Leach, Flo Olenick, Pat Bartlett, Joan Saltanis, and Diane Dormer, all res. agents, NYC, and Betsy Sosa, receptionist.
Pictured above at a bake sale with bats and gloves purchased with help of NY Dist. are from left: Lucy La Palme, Betsy Sosa, Ed Frazier (coach), Kathy Gabriel, and Dotty Gibau.
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| Alan's Space - by Alan Rust |
Follow up on NetLetter nr 1289 "Request for information" on the crash of FIN 813 on May 19, 1967.
We requested information from our readers on behalf of the grand-daughter of Captain Donald Orr who was one of the three pilots killed in 1967 during a training accident in Ottawa.
Our readers came through (again) and Joanne Orr has been in contact with Captain William Robinson's son, Captain Wayne Robinson who is a retired Air Canada pilot. He has a lot of information regarding the crash.
Bill Norberg also contacted Joanne and provided her with a copy of the Department of Transport Accident Report on that incident.
Many other readers contacted Joanne as well with various information. We thank those that helped her receive information.
Below are the photos of the pilots published in the June 1967 issue of "Between Ourselves".
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Canadi>n/CP Air/PWA, Wardair, etc. People & Events
- Compiled by Terry Baker
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 News and articles from days gone by gleaned from various publications from C.A.I.L. and its "ancestry" of contributing airlines. |
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Issue dated - January 1983
Items from the "CPAir NEWS" magazine -
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 With the demise of Canada's two largest tour wholesalers during 1982, CP Air Holidays moved in to fill the void. Here we have some photos of the employees.
Going south on a CP Air Holidays charter flight from Toronto? Here's where they specialize in sun spot reservations
from the left: Agents Judy Manley, Colleen Shields, Linda Collard, Florence Eldemire. Brenda Bradley, Susan Lecer1e, Lynda Sherrlff, Don Kitchen, Chantal Trajanovskl.
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 The Product Administration Group go over every nitty gritty detail of pleasing the customer after the product has been decided upon, marketed, and sold.
In this photo the manager is Marcella De Angelis (centre), seated, from left, Ursula Mindt, product assistant; Brenda McInerney, product supervisor; Julie Suehiro, product supervisor; and Rose Coletta, product assistant.
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 Once the product has been packaged it has to be sold and that chore falls on the shoulders of these people. The CP Air Holidays Eastern Canada sales group is headed by Ed van Oosterhout, manager (right). From behind his desk he views with confidence his leaders, from left, Jim Currie, sales supervisor in charge of inside sales; Diana Young,
sales manager, Ontario, who is responsible for outside sales; Carroll Nicholls, manager, group and incentive travel; and Linda Wright, customer relations manager.
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 CP Air Holidays ''product'' is, naturally a holiday. Where do people want to go? How many? What price? What is the competition? Cruises? Hotels? Duration of program? The questions are endless and here are the people who figure it out,
from left, Lawrence Elliott, contracts manager; Mary Ann Capone, charter assistant (responsible for filing all ITC/ABC programs with government authorities); Frank Orlando, buyer; JoAnn Baran, secretary; and Bob Niddery, product general manager.
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 Tickets and tags. This quartet is in constant motion, dispatching tickets and baggage tags and ensuring that every advertised item is a fact before sending the material on to the customer.
From left, Rosemary Elsey, Janet McCarthy, Jan Marshall and Laurie Penna.
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| Reader's Feedback - Compiled by Terry Baker |
Every week we ask our readers for their stories or feedback on what they have read here in previous issues. Below is the feedback we have received recently.
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In NetLetter nr 1288 we mentioned the establishment of the Winnipeg Airline Rod and Gun Club. Alan Gray has sent us a photo of the badge from that time.
 
Having followed the "Airport Codes" information in recent NetLetters has prompted Norman Hogwood to send us this - The mayor if Dunedin, "The Edinburgh of the South" in the South Island of New Zealand, was hugely upset when IATA gave the code DUD to his city. He insisted that his beautiful city was anything but a dud and tried to complain but of course he got nowhere. Then there was the English passenger travelling from Brisbane to Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea. He objected to the clerk putting a label with POM on it on his baggage! (Possibly not easy to explain to non-antipodeans!),
Cheers. Norm
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Odds and Ends.
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 Sometimes we receive articles and information that just doesn't fit in our other areas. This is where it goes!
The continuation of the Prestwick Story started in NetLetter nr 1290 -
Through Prestwick passed the entire Eighth and part of the Ninth U.S. Army Air Forces. And so the momentum grew as the war progressed. During the winter of 1943-44, the United States, ATC operated 13 daily flights in each direction across the "pond." In 1944, the USAAF established an evacuation hospital at Prestwick for the seriously wounded. In the early days of the war, the Engineering Palace at the Glasgow Exhibition was dismantled and moved to Prestwick. In this building. 1400 fighter aircraft and 1600 Liberators and Fortresses were repaired and modified for active service. It was during the "Battle of Britain" days that many fighter squadrons came north to Prestwick for rest and reforming.
Among the many pilots who knew Prestwick in those days was one Squadron Leader Gordon R. McGregor, D.F.C. We have been given to understand that one day he playfully "shot-up" the airport. Unfortunately, his keen skill in maneuvering the latest type aircraft about the sky was not entirely appreciated by certain airport authorities, a fact of which he later became aware.
In 1944 the famous No. 168 Squadron RCAF, commenced operations to Prestwick carrying Canadian Services' mail, at which time the main Post Office for our troops in the United Kingdom and beyond was established here.
Early in 1943, TCA was asked by the Government to organize a North Atlantic service (CGTAS) for the purpose of carrying official and Canadian Army mails and a very limited number of Government passengers. Service was commenced in July of that year, the first flight leaving Dorval Airport for Prestwick on the 23rd of July. At that moment, only one aircraft was available, a converted Lancaster bomber. Within six months, the service, which was known as the Canadian Government Trans-Atlantic Air Service, was being operated by a fleet of five converted Lancasters and later on four more were added.
C.S.Hewett and A.P. Stewart went over to Prestwick on the first fight, to act as Liaison Officer and Chief Mechanic, respectively. They remained in Prestwick throughout the war and returned to Canada after three years service overseas Six senior TCA Captains were selected to pioneer the service, they were Jock Barclay, Lindy Rood, Bob Smith, George Lothian, Art Rankin and Kelly Edmison.
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 This photo is of "Old Hundred" on the ramp at Prestwick. In the centre of the group is Jock Barclay who helped pioneer TCA's Atlantic service.
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 And here a photo of the forerunner of the pressurized North Star aircraft resting at Prestwick after an ocean crossing, in 1949.
(The conclusion will be in NetLetter nr 1292 - eds)
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Terry's Trivia and Travel Tips - by Terry Baker
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 Traveling between downtown Toronto and Toronto Pearson International Airport will become a whole lot easier, when the Union Pearson Express is inaugurated in 2015. Imagine rising above traffic while experiencing speed and reliability, all stress-free. Announcements, September 26, 2013 - UP Express Pearson Station now 75% complete. (source www.torontopearson.com)
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Interline tour of World Airlines Clubs Association (WACA)
Madagascar sponsored by the AIM Region and Indian Ocean Islands Interline.
Package Cost: 1,580 USD.Dates: 25 May to 02 June 2014.
Capacity: Minimum 20 and Maximum 42.
Deadline date February 25th. Full details at www.waca.org including application form.
Continuing the short history of London's Heathrow airport (LHR)
started in NetLetter nr 1290 - 50'
- 7th February 1952 - Princess Elizabeth flies into London airport as Queen for the first time.
- 16 December 1955 - Queen inaugurates the Central Terminal area, including the new Control Tower , Europa, Britannic and Queens building.
- 1957 - First non-stop flight to California which sets a new record
 for distance and times.
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| Smileys - Compiled by Terry Baker |
As we surf the internet and back issues of airline magazines we regularly find airline related jokes and cartoons. Below is our latest discovery.
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 Our cartoon this week is from the "Between Ourselves" magazine issued February 1955 and submitted by Dave Mathias.
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The NetLetter is an email newsletter published (usually) once a week and contains a mixture of nostalgia, current news and travel tips. We encourage our readers to submit their stories, photos and/or comments from either days gone by or from present day experiences and trips. If we think that the rest of our readers will enjoy it, we will publish it here.
We also welcome your feedback in regard to anything we post here. Many readers have commented with additional information, names and personal memories from the photos and articles presented here.
The NetLetter, which is free, is open to anyone that wishes to subscribe but is targeted to retired employees from Air Canada, Canadian Airlines and all the other companies that were part of what Air Canada is today. Thanks for joining us!
We hope you have enjoyed this issue of the NetLetter, see you next week!
Sincerely,
Your NetLetter Team
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Disclaimer: Please note, that neither the NetLetter or the ACFamily Network necessarily endorse any of the airline related or other "deals" that we provide for our readers. We would be interested in any feedback (good or bad) when using these companies though and will report the results here. We do not (normally) receive any compensation from any companies that we post in our newsletters. If we do receive a donation or other compensation, it will be indicated as a sponsored article or link.
E&OE - (errors and omissions excepted) - The historical information as well as any other information provided here is subject to correction and may have changed over time. We do publish corrections when they are brought to our attention.
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First published in October, 1995
- Chief Pilot - Terry Baker, Nanaimo, B.C.
- Co-pilot - Alan Rust, Surrey, B.C.
- Flight Engineer - Bill Rowsell, Londesboro, Ontario
To contact us, send an email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
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