Holidair Airlines - Calgary International Airport

Holidair Airlines at Calgary International Airport…
I was later hired by Holidair to take one of their charters to Hawaii on full expenses, for the length of time it would take to do a photoshoot for Holidair. It was planed that I arrive two days before a group of Holidair’s Stewardesses, (In later years referred to as Flight-Attendants), were to arrive and be my models for a photoshoot, wearing bikinis and frolicking on the beaches of Honolulu. These images were planned for future advertising they had in mind.
I arrived and waited patiently for up to 4 days without any sign of Stews.
I phoned Holidair in Calgary and asked what the delay was?
I was told by Holidair’s management that just after my arrival in Honolulu the company ceased all operations and was going out of business and I had to find my own way back to Calgary.
I checked with the hotel Holidair had reserved for me and my expenses for the hotel room and all meals were prepaid for the next month. So with this in mind I spend weeks relaxing and suntanning on the beaches at Holidair’s expense.
When it was time, I approached one of the American Airlines that had routes from Stateside into Canada. They had heard the bad news of Holidair and offered me a oneway from Hawaii via many stops enroute on the USA mainland at a reduced airfare rate, with the final destination as Calgary. On my departure date, the taxi fare to the airport was more than the airfare back to Calgary. So it was a nice expense paid holiday.
Over Holidair’s existence, I was fortunate to have met a great group of Holidair staff over the 2 years, 1988 to 1990, that they were in operation.
My specialty was aerial-photography, air to ground. Thereafter, I referred all other non-air to ground photoshoots to the wide choice of photographers that Calgary had listed in the yellow pages.
After retirement, I donated over 5K aerial-photo negs and slides to the Glenbow Museum Calgary and they can be viewed here …..
digitalcollections.ucalgary.c...
Click on the thumbnails to enlarge.
Jim

[@eqplanes]

Keep it up 👍

[@jimhall1864]

Thanks for the encouragement.
If you enjoy aviation history I have other videos on the history of Calgary Int and Springbank airports on my RUclips channel, from my arrival at CYYC over a half century ago.
One of the videos is working in two of the Calgary ATC Towers (#’s 2 and 3) out of the five that have been in use over the history of YC.
I enjoy watching your video’s on your RUclips channel. Reminds me of the past :-)

[@hh1000]

Very cool. I recall the sad sight of a DC-8 which was likely this one, parked west of the end of 34 for a while.

[@jimhall1864]

I can recall one of Holidair’s DC8’s sitting for an extended length of time south end of the East hangar line, but not one west of 34. I was seldom on the west side in later years and probably didn’t notice.