Wardair

When older Canadian spotters talk about “the best airline Canada ever had,” they often don’t mean Air Canada but Wardair. Max Ward’s airline began with a single bush plane in Yellowknife and, two decades later, flew vacationers to Europe in Boeing 747s – with china dinnerware instead of plastic. This page tells the story of Wardair and shows you how to recognize Wardair aircraft in old photos.

Wardair at a glance

Wardair was a historic Canadian airline that flew from 1953 to January 1990. It was founded by Max Ward, a bush pilot from Edmonton, who had the company registered as Wardair Ltd in 1952. On June 6, 1953, flight operations began with a single-engine De Havilland Canada DHC-3 Otter in northern Canada.

Over the following decades Wardair reinvented itself twice: from a bush flying operation to an international charter airline and finally, from 1986, to an airline with its own scheduled network. By the mid-1970s Wardair was Canada’s largest international charter airline. In 1989 PWA Corporation, the parent of Canadian Airlines International, took over the company. On January 15, 1990, Wardair was finally absorbed into Canadian.

Codes and callsign

• IATA code WD: appeared in flight numbers, especially from the start of scheduled service in 1986.
• ICAO code WDA: the identifier in the air traffic control flight plan.
• Callsign WARDAIR: simply the airline’s name – unlike many other carriers whose callsigns have little to do with their names. You’ll find examples in the article on airline callsigns.

All three identifiers are historic. If you see a WD on old timetables or boarding passes today, it belongs to Wardair; the name no longer shows up on current trackers.

Max Ward: from bush pilot to airline chief

Max Ward was born in Edmonton in 1921 and joined the Royal Canadian Air Force in 1940. In World War II he didn’t fly at the front but trained new pilots as a flight instructor. After the war the north called to him: in 1946 he founded Polaris Charter Company in Yellowknife, which offered mining exploration flights with a small de Havilland Fox Moth. A second attempt with a partner, Yellowknife Airways, ended in 1949. Ward left aviation for a while and worked in house building.

A few years later he returned – this time with a company of his own that carried his name. For northern Canada with its mines, lakes and remote settlements, rugged bush planes were exactly the right tool. Max Ward remained the defining figure of the airline until the sale in 1989. He received numerous honors, including the McKee Trophy (1973), induction into Canada’s Aviation Hall of Fame (1974) and appointment as an Officer of the Order of Canada (1975). His autobiography, “The Max Ward Story,” appeared in 1991. Max Ward died in Edmonton in November 2020.

The bush flying years in the north

Wardair’s early years played out far from big airports. The first Otter was joined by a DHC-2 Beaver and more Otters – both classics from the Canadian manufacturer De Havilland Canada that could fly on wheels, floats or skis.

At the end of the 1950s the Bristol 170 Freighter brought the first heavy aircraft into the fleet. The twin-engine freighter with its large nose doors could carry bulky cargo such as vehicles or mining equipment to the north. According to Canada’s Aviation Hall of Fame, Wardair made the first landing of a wheeled aircraft at the North Pole in May 1967.

From 1962, Douglas DC-6s supplemented the cargo flights into the Arctic. In October 1979 Wardair finally ended its traditional northern operations and concentrated entirely on passenger flights.

The road to charter airline

From propeller to jet

In 1962 Wardair set out on the path that made the airline famous: with a Douglas DC-6B rented from Canadian Pacific, it flew charter flights for vacationers for the first time. For international flights the company operated as Wardair Canada; that became the official company name only in the 1970s. The pattern stuck: to Europe in summer, to the sun in Mexico and California in winter.

In 1966 came the step into the jet age. Wardair took over a Boeing 727-100 with the registration CF-FUN – the first 727 in Canada. In 1968 and 1969 two Boeing 707s of the 707-320C type were added, with which Wardair offered nonstop charter flights across the Atlantic. They were financed in part through the 1967 stock market listing.

The 747 arrives

On April 23, 1973, Wardair took delivery of its first Boeing 747: a 747-100 with the registration CF-DJC and the name “Phil Garratt.” According to Canada’s Aviation Hall of Fame, it had room for 452 passengers. For a charter airline from Canada this was a thunderclap – the jumbo was then the prestige aircraft of large flag carriers. How the 747 came about is told in the article on the history of the Boeing 747.

By 1980 the long-haul fleet comprised four 747s and two McDonnell Douglas DC-10-30s. According to common fleet lists, the later 747s also included aircraft of the 747-200 version. The DC-10-30s flew for Wardair from 1978 to 1988. The manufacturers were Boeing and McDonnell Douglas.

Bases and holding company

In 1976 the holding company Wardair International was created, based in Mississauga near Toronto. Edmonton remained the home base, but by now most flights departed from Toronto Pearson Airport. Destination number one in Europe was Britain, where many Canadians had family.

Aircraft with names: the bush pilot gallery

One detail makes Wardair photos especially appealing to collectors: Max Ward named his aircraft after pioneers of Canadian bush flying. In doing so he built a bridge between his own beginnings in the north and the widebody jets of the 1970s and 1980s.

Aircraft	Year	Name according to Canada’s Aviation Hall of Fame
Boeing 727-100	1966	Cy Becker
Boeing 707	1968	Punch Dickins
Boeing 707	1969	Wop May
Boeing 747-100 (CF-DJC)	1973	Phil Garratt
Other 747s, DC-10s, A300s, A310s	from the 1970s	also names of bush pilots

If you want to identify an archive photo, the name together with the registration can help pin down the aircraft unambiguously. Note down both, because with widebody jets in particular, registrations and names sometimes changed over the years.

Service instead of budget flying

Wardair was not a discount airline. The idea was rather to offer good service at below-average prices. In the 1980s Wardair advertised with the motto “Steak & Champagne.” It served high-quality meals on Royal Doulton china – anything but a given for a charter airline at the time.

It went over well: the British consumer magazine Holiday Which? named Wardair charter airline of the year in 1985 and best scheduled airline in 1986 and 1987. For many Canadians, the first Wardair flight to Europe was an experience they still remembered decades later – and that is exactly where the airline’s cult status comes from. What fundamentally distinguishes charter from scheduled service is explained in the article Charter flights vs. scheduled flights.

The scheduled-service chapter, 1986 to 1989

Scheduled rights at last

For a long time Wardair was allowed to offer only charter flights in Canada; scheduled service was reserved for the big carriers such as Air Canada and CP Air. In early 1986 Wardair received scheduled rights. On May 12, 1986, a scheduled network from Toronto began operating, at first with three leased Airbus A300B4s. Later the same year, scheduled flights to Britain, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic were added.

By 1989 the network had grown to include Canadian cities as well as London Gatwick, Manchester, Birmingham, Prestwick, Amsterdam, Paris, Puerto Plata and San Juan.

The big order

In early 1987 Wardair ordered twelve Airbus A310-300s from Airbus, delivered from the end of 1987. Orders followed for McDonnell Douglas MD-88s and Fokker 100s for short and medium routes, plus two more A310s. In the end only the first twelve A310s were delivered – the remaining orders were canceled after the takeover.

Takeover and end

In early 1989 it became known that Canadian Airlines International was interested in Wardair. Canadian had only been formed in 1987 from Pacific Western Airlines and CP Air. In spring 1989 PWA Corporation, Canadian’s holding company, bought the airline and with it took over its fleet and Europe routes. The background cited includes the costly expansion, the strong competition from the two big airlines and the long government regulation of the Canadian market.

Until early 1990 Wardair continued to fly under its own name. On January 15, 1990, the airline was fully absorbed into Canadian Airlines International. The A310s continued flying with Canadian; five of them later went to the Canadian Armed Forces and were used there as the CC-150 Polaris. Ironically, that gave them the name Max Ward had given to his first company decades earlier. Canadian itself was integrated into Air Canada in 2001.

How to recognize Wardair in old photos

Today you can only see Wardair aircraft on slides, prints and digitized archive images. A few features help with identification:

• “Wardair” titles on the fuselage – the surest sign.
• Canadian registration: older registrations with CF-, later ones with C-.
• Name of a bush pilot, which helps match individual aircraft.
• Type and time fit together: An A310 dates from 1987 onward, a 727 from the early days of the jet age.

For identifying the 747 type, the guide Telling the Boeing 747-100 through 747-8 apart helps. You can recognize the early versions by, among other things, the short upper deck with few windows.

Transitional liveries after takeovers are a collecting field of their own. The article on hybrid and mixed liveries explains how to recognize them.

Wardair in the Canadian airline family tree

Wardair is an important branch in the family tree of Canadian aviation. Through Canadian Airlines the line leads on to Air Canada. The charter and leisure market that Wardair had built up was afterward served by other carriers – such as Canada 3000, which started in 1988, or Air Transat, which still flies vacationers to Europe and the sun today.

Common mix-ups

• Mistaking Wardair for a budget airline – Wardair stood for charter fares with upscale service, not for discount.
• Mistaking the A310s at Canadian for Canadian’s own orders – they come from the Wardair order of 1987.
• Confusing the CC-150 Polaris with Wardair – the military A310s are former Wardair aircraft but belong to the armed forces.
• Equating Wardair with CP Air – both were absorbed into Canadian, but they were competitors with very different origins.
• Confusing founding year and start of operations – founded in 1952, flying from June 1953.

Conclusion

Wardair shows how far a single bush pilot could go: from an Otter in Yellowknife to a Boeing 747 on its way to London. The airline stood for charter flights with real service, for aircraft carrying the names of Canadian aviation pioneers and for a short, ambitious scheduled-service chapter. For spotters it is now an archive topic – with the Bristol Freighter in Yellowknife as a tangible remnant.