Author: acyyz58

One day, while working as a fill-in lead in zone 5, I was tasked with overseeing a shift change with a senior crew. All of the members were great guys, and among them was Mario Angelucci. The day started out well, with the team making my job easier, and I felt confident in my abilities. However, our block showed that a Cathay Pacific flight was inbound right after lunch. Mario suggested that we line up the flight before taking a longer lunch break, so we did as he suggested, printing off the offload sheet and getting everything ready. The flight was a full containment of pallets and dollies, and we went to lunch feeling good about our progress.

However, my good mood was short-lived. I received a call from the planner during lunch, who asked me to give him a call back. When I did, he informed me that there was a change to the block and that I no longer had the Cathay Pacific flight, but instead 857 LHR. He told me to leave all the equipment there for the Cathay flight and to line up the LHR flight instead. This news was a huge disappointment, and I was so frustrated that I don’t even remember what I said to the planner.

I had to inform the crew, cutting our lunch short, and they were not happy, especially Mario. We quickly had to scramble to gather the necessary equipment for 857 LHR, which was in short supply. When the flight arrived, I had to tow it to gate 104 using the paymover. As I was towing the aircraft, I noticed the planner standing nearby, with arms crossed and a displeased look on his face. I wasn’t in the mood for a confrontation, but I was so upset that I approached him and asked if he wanted to talk to me. He simply replied “Nope” and walked away, leaving me even more frustrated and angry.

Fly the flag, up high in the sky, With Air Canada, soaring way up high. From sea to sea, our home and pride, Across the land, we glide with stride.

With friendly service and comfort so grand, We’ll take you to your next great land. From cities to mountains, forests and shore, With us, you’ll soar and explore.

So pack your bags and come aboard, With Air Canada, your journey’s reward. Fly the flag, and join the ride, With Air Canada, soaring side by side.

Fly the friendly skies, Where the clouds kiss the sun, With United Airlines soaring high, Our journey has just begun.

A breeze blowing through the cabin, Comforts us as we take flight, With hospitality that’s second to none, We make our trip truly bright.

From the airport to the skies, We make our customers feel at ease, With friendly staff that’s always by our side, Providing comfort, joy, and peace.

So come join us on this ride, And experience the friendliest skies, With United Airlines by our side, We’ll make your journey truly rise.

Fiction: based on a story from Richard Matheson

Mrs. Johnson, an elderly woman who lived in a remote cabin in the woods, was used to a simple life with no modern conveniences. But one day, a strange deafening noise above her kitchen roof caught her attention. When she went to check, she was met with two tiny figures, who appeared to be robots or beings in pressure suits, emerging from a miniature flying saucer that had landed on her roof.

The small figures attacked Mrs. Johnson with pistol-like weapons, leaving radiation burns on her skin. They followed her into her cabin, where they slashed her ankle and hand with her own kitchen knife. But Mrs. Johnson was a tough woman and managed to fight back, killing one of the intruders by wrapping it in a blanket and beating it until it was still, then throwing it into the burning fireplace.

She followed the other intruder to the saucer-ship on her roof and attacked it with a hatchet. Suddenly, a voice speaking in English emanated from within the craft, warning her that his partner, Gresham, was dead and that the planet was inhabited by a race of giants that were impossible to defeat. To her surprise, the side of the ship read “U.S. Air Force Space Probe No. 1.” The “tiny” invaders were human astronauts from Earth. Mrs. Johnson, who belonged to a race of giant humanoids native to another planet, finished destroying the ship and climbed back down from the roof into the house, exhausted.

From that day on, Mrs. Johnson lived a quiet life, pondering the strange encounter she had with the human astronauts. She couldn’t help but wonder if there were other beings out there, and what other adventures life had in store for her.

A young man, Jeff Myrtlebank, boarded a flight to visit his girlfriend Comfort in a small rural town in the southernmost section of the Midwest. During the flight, Jeff suddenly passed away due to a heart condition. The flight crew declared him dead, and the plane made an emergency landing in the nearest town for a funeral.

However, at Jeff’s funeral, he suddenly came back to life, causing panic among the mourners. The town doctor declared it was more likely a medical condition that imitated death, but the townspeople believed he was possessed by a ghost or demon. Jeff seemed normal, but with a change – he was now a hard worker with exceptional strength but ate less.

When Jeff went to visit Comfort, he brought her a bouquet of roses, which were all dead by the time he gave them to her. Comfort was afraid and wouldn’t let him touch her. Her older brother confronted Jeff and they got into a fight, but Jeff won with newfound strength. The townspeople gathered and decided to get rid of the supposed evil among them.

Comfort warned Jeff and declared her love for him. Jeff proposed to her, but the angry townspeople arrived to confront the supposed demon. Jeff made an inspiring speech, convincing the townspeople that he was not a demon, and threatened them if they were wrong. The townspeople nervously accepted Jeff’s wisdom and promised to attend the wedding.

As Jeff and Comfort walked to the house, Jeff lit a match, which lit on its own, making Comfort ask if he was capable of doing the things he threatened the townspeople with. Jeff replied that he was lying, and the fence gate closed behind them on its own. The couple boarded a flight to their honeymoon destination, and the incident remained a mystery in the small town.

Roger Shackleforth was a successful businessman who traveled frequently for work. He was hopelessly in love with Leila, a beautiful flight attendant who was a constant tease and played with his feelings. One day, while waiting for his flight at the airport, a stranger handed him the business card of an old professor named “A. Daemon”. The stranger claimed that the professor could help with any problem, and Roger, desperate to win Leila’s love, decided to visit him.

After some hesitation, Professor Daemon agreed to help Roger and sold him a love potion for $1. Excited, Roger immediately made arrangements to meet Leila on a flight and administered the potion in a glass of champagne. To his surprise, Leila fell madly in love with him, and they eventually got married. However, Leila’s love soon became suffocating, and Roger felt trapped in their relationship.

Desperate to escape, Roger returned to Professor Daemon and paid $1,000, all of his savings, for a potion that would end his problems. Daemon warned Roger that the potion was undetectable, but he must use it immediately and completely or he would lose his nerve.

Roger prepared a glass of champagne with the new potion and was about to give it to Leila when she revealed she was pregnant. Shocked, Roger dropped both glasses and realized that he couldn’t go through with it anyway. As he passed out, Professor Daemon relaxed on Roger’s terrace, smoking a cigar, and after puffing a smoke ring that turned into a heart, he disappeared.

It’s World War II, and the King Nine, a B-25 Mitchell bomber, has crashed in the desert. Captain James Embry finds himself stranded, alone except for the wreckage and the mystery of what happened to his crew, all of whom have disappeared. The movement of the plane in the wind and his visions of the missing men serve to heighten Embry’s disorientation. While searching for his crew, Embry finds the grave of one of his men, and recognizes in the sky Navy F9F Cougar jets, which are impossible for 1943. He is bewildered as to how he knows about jet aircraft and becomes increasingly distressed. Embry collapses in the sand, and it is revealed that he is apparently hospitalized and suffering hallucinations, 17 years after the crash. Confident that Embry will recover, two doctors discuss their speculation that his suffering has been triggered by a newspaper headline. The paper has reported the desert discovery of the long-lost King Nine, which had not returned to base from a wartime mission in 1943. Having come down with a fever just before he was to board the ill-fated flight, Embry had been replaced on the mission by another captain. Seeing the headline has triggered survivor guilt, the intensity of which has caused him to imagine himself at the crash site. The doctors assure Embry he has returned to the site only in his mind. However, when a nurse handling his clothes accidentally turns one of his shoes on its side, sand spills out.

An aerial photographer and his assistant on April 1, 1997, climbed to almost 28,000 feet in an unpressurized Cessna 337D Skymaster that had been modified to carry a through-the-floor camera. They were “on oxygen,” of course, breathing through face masks. The assistant remembers the pilot reaching back to turn on the oxygen tank valve; she felt the flow of cool air into her mask and noted that the indicator in the oxygen line had flipped from red to green, indicating a positive flow. As the Cessna climbed through 20,000 feet, however, she felt dizzy and disoriented, and she closed her eyes—the last thing she remembers about the flight. Air Traffic Control was unable to contact the pilot, though its radar painted the airplane climbing through its assigned altitude—FL250—and reaching 27,700 feet, then descending rapidly to 26,000 before disappearing from the scope about 15 miles west of Pittsburgh, Pa. The Cessna had come apart because of the extreme stresses of an uncontrolled high-speed spiral dive, with a pilot dead of hypoxia at the controls. Through a horrible April Fool’s Day mix-up, the airplane’s portable oxygen tank had been filled with ordinary compressed air, not oxygen—fine for scuba divers, fatal for pilots. Shedding its left outboard wing, tail booms and empennage, the four-seat cabin, a pod about the size of a subcompact car, fell nearly five miles and ended up in a tree on a golf resort. With the right wing remaining and the cabin and two engines at one end of it, again a maple-seed spiral almost certainly slowed the descent. The woman in the right seat survived with minor cuts and bruises, apparently having been better acclimated than the pilot to flying at Everest altitudes while breathing what was essentially ambient air.

The Avion Motor Hotel, a place of fame For all the airline folks, it’s their name. In Malton, Ontario, it stands tall, Where memories are made and stories are told.

The ramp agents, flight crews, and more, Gather here after flights to score. Wild parties, laughter, and endless fun, The Avion’s halls resound with everyone.

Drinks flow like the planes they guide, Stories are spun, laughter abides. Here they unwind and leave behind, The stress and strains of the skies.

It’s a place of rest and joy untold, For these travelers brave and bold. With memories made and tales to tell, The Avion Motor Hotel will always dwell.

The livery of Air Canada in the 1970s was designed in-house by the airline’s design team. At the time, Air Canada had a basic design featuring a stylized maple leaf on a white tail fin with a blue stripe running along the fuselage. The design was simple and straightforward, reflecting the airline’s focus on safety, reliability, and efficiency.

It’s worth noting that in the decades since the 1970s, Air Canada has undergone several updates to its brand and livery, including the launch of the red, white, and black design that is currently used by the airline. The red, white, and black livery was developed in the early 1990s by the design firm Futurebrand, in partnership with Air Canada.