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A Profile of Canadian Airlines
Canadian Airlines, also known in the Canadian/Canadien bilingual form, is the second largest Canadian airline after Air Canada. It started its activity in 1987 when Canadian Pacific Airlines merged with Eastern Provincial Airways, Nordair and Pacific Western Airlines, in a large consolidation between local medium-size airlines. Two years later Wardair, a charter airline, joined the new group.
Canadian Pacific Airlines had its roots inside the Canadian rail transportation system. In 1942 Canadian Pacific Railways took over some bush airlines connecting railway stations to various remote settlements and formed a subsidiary named Canadian Pacific Airlines.
In the after-war years, the airline expanded its activity to intercontinental destinations pioneering the polar route. During the fifties and the sixties, Canadian Pacific Airlines' DC-6Bs, Comets and Bristol Britannias rivalled worldwide Trans Canada Airlines, the state-owned airline which was renamed Air Canada in 1964.
The corporate image of the Canadian Pacific group and its divisions was restyled in 1968. Aircraft, trains and ships were painted in different two-tone bright colour-schemes. Consequently the airline became simply CP Air and its aircraft were painted in an impressive orange and red oblique livery, starting a brand new approach to the external look of the airliners in the following decades.
In the picture: Special air mail delivery in occasion of the first Sydney-Vancouver-Amsterdam service, via the polar route, operated by Canadian Pacific on 8 June 1955 (property of Aeromedia).
(Aeromedia, April 2000)
| Douglas DC-8-43
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| Boeing B.747-217B
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| McDonnell Douglas DC-8-63
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| McDonnell Douglas DC-10-30
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