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129 14 Trans-Canada Airlines the day after this impulsive gesture, Pierre Jeanniot went to the Unemployment Insurance Officen to consult the list of available positions. He was not overly concerned. Somewhere in Montreal a business in the aviation sector had to be in search of a workforce specialized in electronics. The last entry in the day’s listing read as follows: “Seek an electric or electronics technician for the Quality Control Division of Airline Operations. Contact Trans-Canada Airlines.” He noted the address and phone number, and made an appointment. The need was urgent: he was invited for an interview the following day. Pierre Jeanniot had had earlier contacts with Trans-Canada Airlines. He knew that tca had recently bought complex systems of gyroscopic compasses from Sperry Gyroscope for their new Lockheed Super Constellations. He also had had to go there to deal with problems the company had been experiencing with their new purchases. tca had not installed them correctly, resulting in an inversion of the instruments’ rotation cycles. For neophytes, the problem was a mystery, but for Pierre Jeanniot, who knew the systems inside out, the problem was easy to solve. He thought to himself that he could surely be useful to a company guilty of such a flagrant error. Bring on more problems like that! Two days later, he received a call: the director of quality control at tca told him that he had decided to hire two technicians who would be responsible for analyzing technical weaknesses and proposing correctives, and that in six months he would decide between the two. Pierre Jeanniot accepted immediately, confident of winning the contest. His counterpart, Donald Blair, was an engineer from New Brunswick. The cards were on the table: with a handshake The Unemployment Insurance Act was adopted in 1940, replacing the Employment and Social Insurance Act of 1935, designed to counter the effects of the Depression. It would be modified in 1971, 1975, 1994 and 1996, when it became a program thereafter called ‘Employment Insurance.’ Taking Aviation to New Heights 130 and smiles on their lips, they wished each other good luck. Sixmonthslater,Blairlefttca.PierreJeanniotmethimmany years later, after he had become president of Air Canada. His former rival had become the editor-in-chief of a technical revue specializing in aviation. The company Pierre Jeanniot was joining, where without knowing it he would remain for the next thirty-five years of his life, was founded in 1937 by Mackenzie King’s government and given the name Trans-Canada Airlines (tca). It would become Air Canada only in 1964. At first the airline company was to be a commercial complement to the transport services already offered by the Canadian Pacific and Canadian National railways. By creating a Crown corporation , the prime minister wanted to answer the growing needs of Canadian travelers by establishing a transcontinental air network that would be operated by a national transporter. The private company, Western Canada Airways, created in 1926, already transported freight and mailn but offered no passenger service. As for Canadian Airways Limited, it carried out bush flights, for the most part, in Canada’s far north;n it would be amalgamated with other small carriers in 1942 to form the private company Canadian Pacific Airlines.n And only in 1945 would Pacific Western Airlines be formed in Calgary, which would later, after amalgamations and acquisitions, become Canadian Airlines International in 1987. The launch of tca was a media coup. The inaugural flight, which took place on July 30, 1937, was widely covered by Canadian press and radio. The transport minister, C. D. Howe, climbed aboard a Lockheed, which made the trip from Montreal to Vancouver in fourteen hours and thirty-four minutes. A few days later, tca made its first commercial run between Vancouver and Seattle, transporting two passengers and a few bags of the ‘Royal Mail’n in fifty minutes. The company directors, recruited in large part from among the executives of the Canadian National Railway, had their offices in Montreal in the cn freight building at 355 McGill Street, while the centre for technical training was located in Winnipeg. The fleet was made up of two planes with ten seats and one engine. At tca, Pierre Jeanniot joined the Failure Investigation In Canada, airmail delivery began in 1927, one year after Antoine de SaintExup éry was hired by the French Aéropostale to fly between Toulouse, France, and Casablanca, Morocco. The first return flights were made by hydroplane from the port...

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