Steel pan music, colourfully dressed dancers and stiltmen greeted passengers arriving on Air Canada’s 65th anniversary flight at Grantley Adams International Airport yesterday.
The festive atmosphere was in celebration of over six decades of the North American airline flying to Barbados.
Celebrations for the 65th anniversary kicked off in Toronto on Monday night with a reception hosted by the Toronto office of the Barbados Tourism Marketing Inc (BTMI) and attended by Barbados’ Consul General in Toronto, Haynesley Benn, who deputised for Minister of Tourism Richard Sealy.
Yesterday’s Boeing 777 jet, piloted by Captain Bob Fischer, was much more than a step up from the first Trans Canada Airline aircraft which landed on a coral-surfaced runway at the newly built Seawell Airport on December 2, 1949. That flight, which signalled the beginning of a long-lasting travel relationship between Canada and Barbados, was a propeller plane carrying 44 passengers. It took 15 hours to reach Barbados, after making two stops. (GC)
Please read the full story in today’s Midweek Nation, or in the eNATION edition.
