Canadian Pacific Air Lines

If you leaf through old slide boxes or photo books of Canadian airports from the 1970s, sooner or later you stumble upon an orange jet with the titles “CP Air.” Behind it stands Canadian Pacific Air Lines – the airline of the legendary Canadian Pacific railway group. For 45 years it was the big private rival of the state airline, flew from Vancouver across the Pacific and over the North Pole to Europe, and gave its aircraft names following the pattern “Empress of ….” Here you learn how the airline came about, which aircraft shaped its image, how to recognize it on old shots and how it became Canadian Airlines.

CP Air at a glance

Canadian Pacific Air Lines was the airline of the Canadian Pacific group and existed from 1942 to 1987. The group was then far more than a railway: it also included ocean liners, hotels and telegraph lines. The airline fit into this transport empire and over the decades became Canada’s second major airline – alongside the state-owned Trans-Canada Air Lines, which later became Air Canada.

The airline’s home was Vancouver. From the west coast Asia was close, and that is exactly where CP Air set its focus: Pacific routes to Japan, Hong Kong and Australia, later also the polar route to Europe. In the east Toronto – today Toronto Pearson Airport – became an important base, among other things for Europe flights.

In 1987 the story as a brand of its own ended: Pacific Western Airlines bought the airline, and together they formed Canadian Airlines International.

Codes, callsign and names

• IATA code CP: appeared in the airline’s flight numbers.
• ICAO code CPC: the three-letter code for air traffic control and flight plans.
• Callsign EMPRESS: On the radio the crews identified themselves as “Empress.” This matches the aircraft names following the pattern “Empress of …,” with which Canadian Pacific brought the tradition of its famous Empress ocean liners into the air.
• Registrations CF- and C-: All aircraft were registered in Canada. Until the 1970s the format was CF- plus three letters, afterward C-F… or C-G…. How registrations are built in general is explained in the guide Understanding aircraft registrations.

For the name, a close look at the date is worthwhile: until 1968 the airline was called Canadian Pacific Air Lines, from fall 1968 to December 1985 CP Air, and afterward Canadian Pacific Air Lines again. A photo with “CP Air” on the fuselage therefore dates from between 1968 and about 1986.

The history: from bush flying to a world airline

1942: ten bush operators become one airline

In the early 1940s the Canadian Pacific Railway bought up ten smaller airlines that mainly served the Canadian north. They included names such as Yukon Southern Air Transport, Mackenzie Air Services, Ginger Coote Airways and Canadian Airways. In 1942 they were combined, and in May 1942 the new company officially received the name Canadian Pacific Air Lines. There was initially no coherent route network – the routes taken over led mainly to the north of the country.

The defining figure of the first decades was Grant McConachie, general manager from 1941 and president from 1947 to 1965. He drove the airline toward the Pacific – a course that proved a recipe for success.

The long fight over the domestic network

The Canadian government protected its own airline. A merger of Canadian Pacific with Trans-Canada Air Lines was prohibited in 1942, and an application for transcontinental flights was rejected in 1944. Only at the end of the 1950s was the airline allowed to offer a daily connection across the country. For decades the government limited its market share on the major domestic routes in favor of Air Canada – only in 1979 did this fixed split disappear.

After the war the airline moved its headquarters from Montreal to Vancouver. Domestically the Douglas DC-3 was the most important aircraft for a long time – the article Douglas DC-3: history tells more about the classic.

1949: across the Pacific

Because the domestic market was blocked, McConachie looked outward. On July 13, 1949 the first international service departed from Vancouver via Honolulu and Fiji to Sydney, and in the same year the connection to Tokyo and Hong Kong followed. At first the Canadair C-4 North Star was used, a Canadian DC-4 derivative with Merlin engines. In the 1950s the Douglas DC-4 and then the Douglas DC-6 in the DC-6B version took over these routes.

From October 1953 the airline also flew via Mexico City to Lima, later on to Buenos Aires and Santiago de Chile. For spotters the Pacific side is especially exciting: the airline flew regularly to Hong Kong and thus landed at the old Kai Tak Airport, whose spectacular approach is described in the article Kai Tak: the approach.

1953: the Comet setback

Canadian Pacific wanted to enter the jet age early and ordered the de Havilland DH.106 Comet. The first aircraft, the Comet 1A CF-CUN, crashed on takeoff in Karachi during the delivery flight on March 3, 1953. All eleven people on board died – the accident is considered the first fatal accident of a jet airliner. The airline dropped its jet plans afterward and for the time being kept relying on propellers. The story of the type is told in the article De Havilland Comet: the first jetliner.

1955: the polar route to Europe

On June 3, 1955, Amsterdam was added to the schedule as the first European destination – flown on the polar route over the high north. For the time this was a prestige project: instead of going via eastern Canada, flights went from the west coast directly toward Europe. Today you land there at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport. More European destinations followed from Toronto: Lisbon and Madrid in 1957, Rome in 1960 and Athens in 1968.

1958 to 1961: Britannia and DC-8

On April 9, 1958 the first of six Bristol Britannias joined the fleet. The four-engine turboprop flew mainly on long haul. On February 22, 1961 the first Douglas DC-8 arrived. By the mid-1960s it had replaced the DC-6B and Britannia on long haul. Later the airline also flew the stretched DC-8-63, which remained in service until about 1983.

1968: Canadian Pacific becomes CP Air

In 1968 the parent company changed its entire corporate look. The group’s old beaver logo disappeared and was replaced by the Multimark: a triangle in a circle segment that forms a diamond with a mirrored counterpart. Each division received the symbol in its own base color, the railway became CP Rail – and the airline became CP Air in bold orange. On October 21, 1968 the first Boeing 737-200 joined the fleet already in the new colors.

In the years afterward the jet fleet grew significantly. For domestic and North American routes the Boeing 727-100 and later the Boeing 727-200 arrived, and in 1970 the nonstop connection Vancouver–San Francisco started with the 737-200. From November 1973 CP Air flew the Boeing 747 – first the Boeing 747-100, later also the 747-200; how to tell the versions apart is shown in Recognizing the Boeing 747-100 through 747-8 – and in the late 1970s the McDonnell Douglas DC-10 followed in the long-range version DC-10-30.

The 1980s: growth, debt and a new old name

After the end of the fixed market split in 1979, CP Air invested massively in its fleet – the renewal left around a billion dollars of debt. The airline restructured: DC-8s, Boeing 727s and finally the 747s left the fleet by the mid-1980s, replaced by more DC-10-30s and the Boeing 737-300. In 1985 the airline added New Zealand to the network again and flew nonstop from Vancouver to Hong Kong, and in 1986 it launched the first nonstop connection by a North American airline to mainland China, to Shanghai.

With Eastern Provincial Airways from eastern Canada and Nordair from Montreal, two regional companies joined in the mid-1980s, complementing the network in eastern Canada. In December 1985 the airline returned to the name Canadian Pacific Air Lines, and from 1986 it flew in a new dark blue livery with its own logo – partly with the French lettering “Canadien Pacifique.”

The fleet at a glance

Type	Period (approximate)	Use	Spotter tip
Douglas DC-3	1940s–1960s	Domestic, north	Standard aircraft of the postwar era
Canadair C-4 North Star	from 1949	First Pacific routes	DC-4 derivative with Merlin engines
Douglas DC-6B	1950s–1960s	Pacific, South America, polar route	Four-engine with radial engines
Bristol Britannia	from 1958	Long haul	Four turboprops, “Empress” names
Douglas DC-8 (-40, -50, -63)	1961–1983	Long haul	-63 with a very long fuselage
Boeing 727-100/-200	1969–1984	Domestic, North America	Three rear engines, T-tail
Boeing 737-200	1968–1987	Domestic, short haul	Slender engines under the wings
Boeing 747-100/-200	1973–mid-1980s	Long haul	Typical hump silhouette
McDonnell Douglas DC-10-30	from the late 1970s	Long haul	Third engine in the vertical stabilizer
Boeing 737-300	1983–1987	Domestic	Flattened engine inlets

The periods are approximations – depending on the source, entry and retirement years differ by a year or more. Many DC-10-30s and 737s kept flying with Canadian Airlines International after 1987.

How to recognize CP Air

The strongest feature is the color: between 1968 and 1986 the jets wore a striking orange and the titles “CP Air.” Added to that was the group’s Multimark, which was also found on Canadian Pacific’s trains and ships – there, however, in other colors. The livery is still considered one of the most distinctive airline designs in North America; if you are interested in such classics, the article Legendary airline liveries in history is worthwhile.

Accidents and incidents

Like many airlines of its time, Canadian Pacific experienced several serious accidents. A selection:

• September 9, 1949: A DC-3 crashed in Québec after a bomb explosion, killing all 23 people on board. The case went down in criminal history as the Guay affair.
• March 3, 1953: The new Comet 1A CF-CUN crashed during the delivery flight in Karachi, eleven dead.
• July 22, 1962: A Britannia crashed on approach to Honolulu with an engine shut down, 27 people died.
• July 8, 1965: Flight 21, a DC-6B, was destroyed by a bomb in British Columbia, and all 52 occupants were killed.
• March 4, 1966: The DC-8-43 CF-CPK crashed in poor visibility while landing at Tokyo Haneda Airport, 64 of 72 people died.
• June 23, 1985: At Tokyo Narita Airport, baggage that had arrived on a CP Air flight from Vancouver exploded. Two baggage handlers died. The attack was linked to the bombing of Air India Flight 182 on the same day.

The end: Canadian Airlines International

The investments of the late 1970s had left CP Air with a large mountain of debt. In early 1987 Pacific Western Airlines from Calgary bought the airline for 300 million Canadian dollars and additionally assumed around 600 million dollars of debt. In spring 1987 CP Air, PWA and the regional subsidiaries were merged into Canadian Airlines International, based in Calgary.

Canadian bought Wardair in 1989 and was a founding member of the oneworld alliance in 1999. At the end of 1999 Air Canada took control, and in January 2001 the integration was complete. That also ended the last line that went back to Canadian Pacific.

CP Air today: archive, museum and tracing its steps

CP Air has not existed in scheduled service since 1987. Even so, you can still encounter the airline:

• Archive and photo books: Most traces are found on slides and paper prints. For dating, the guide Spotting vintage aircraft in the sky helps, and for design changes When airlines change their design fits.
• Preserved aircraft: A DC-6B named “Empress of Suva” is on display in Wallmannsthal in South Africa, a DC-3 at the Yukon Transportation Museum in Whitehorse.
• Canadian aviation history: The Canada Aviation and Space Museum in Ottawa offers a good overview of the country’s civil and military aviation and also shows a Fairchild 82A from the airline’s early years.
• At the old home airport: In Vancouver you can spot today at Larry Berg Flight Path Park – where the orange jets once departed for Asia.

The history also lives on at the former destinations: Sydney Airport was the endpoint of the first Pacific route in 1949 – long before airlines like Qantas and Air Canada established long-haul routes to North America there.

Common mix-ups

• Equating CP Air with Air Canada – Air Canada was the state airline, CP Air its private competitor.
• Confusing CP Air with Cathay Pacific – both had “Pacific” in the name but have nothing to do with each other. Cathay Pacific comes from Hong Kong.
• Confusing Canadian Pacific with Pacific Western – PWA was a separate airline from western Canada that bought CP Air in 1987.
• Taking every orange for CP Air – other airlines also used orange; what counts are the titles, the Multimark and the registration.
• Taking the dark blue livery for Canadian – it belongs to Canadian Pacific Air Lines 1986/87, and Canadian afterward flew with gray stripes and a red chevron.

Conclusion

Canadian Pacific Air Lines was Canada’s second major airline for 45 years. Formed from ten bush airlines, it opened up the Pacific from 1949, flew the polar route to Europe from 1955 and, as CP Air with its orange livery, shaped the look of Canadian airports in the 1970s. With DC-8s, Boeing 747s and DC-10-30s it flew to Asia, Oceania, South America and Europe. In 1987 it was absorbed with Pacific Western into Canadian Airlines International, which disappeared into Air Canada in 2001. For you as a spotter, CP Air lives on in archives, photo books and old slides.