Canadian Pacific Air Lines - Overseas Routes

Overseas Routes

The development of the great circle or polar route to the Far East from CP Air's Vancouver base would become one of the cornerstones of the airline. Grant McConachie managed to secure flights to Amsterdam, Australia, Hong Kong, and Shanghai, which helped the airline's revenue grow from $3 million in 1942 to $61 million by 1964. Flights to Sydney and to Hong Kong via Tokyo started in 1949, with Canadairs; DC-4s took over in 1952 and DC-6Bs in 1953. Flights to Lima started in 1953 (extended to Buenos Aires in 1956) and to Amsterdam in 1955. In August 1956 three DC-6Bs a week left Vancouver for Amsterdam, two for Tokyo and Hong Kong, one Auckland, one Sydney, and one Buenos Aires.

Several of the key routes in the early days were as follows:

• Flights 1 & 2, flying Hong Kong – Tokyo – Vancouver – Edmonton – Winnipeg – Toronto – Montreal
• Flight 301/302, flying Sydney – Nadi – Honolulu – Vancouver – Edmonton, and non-stop via the Polar route to Amsterdam. Other flights to Europe included Lisbon, Milan, and Rome.
• Flights 401/402, flying Vancouver, Mexico City, Lima, Santiago and Buenos Aires
• Flights 501/502, Mexico City – Toronto – Santa Maria (Azores) – Lisbon – Madrid

Other routes duplicated parts of the above, but from the 1959 Intercontinental Timetable these appear to be the main routes, and show the inventiveness that Canadian Pacific Airlines needed to employ and how they developed other overseas routes for Canada. The airline was flying DC-4s and DC-6Bs internationally in the 1950s, introducing turboprop Bristol Britannia Aircraft in 1958. DC-8s began to replace them from 1961, but the Britannias continued on routes that were unsuitable for the new jets well into the 1960s – for example on the route to New Zealand until Whenuapai closed to civil traffic in November 1965. Service to New Zealand resumed in 1985 along with non-stop flights from Vancouver to Hong Kong, and in 1986 CP Air became the first North American airline with a non-stop flight between North America and Mainland China with a weekly flight to Shanghai. Flights to Beijing, Bangkok, Rio de Janeiro, and São Paulo were added in 1987.

Although Canadian Pacific was not allowed scheduled routes to many European countries, they developed extensive charter flights (operated mainly in summertime) beginning in the mid 1960s and through the 1970s and 1980s to Britain, France, Germany and other European points which permitted them some access to these markets. Unusually for charter flights, they were listed in detail in their system timetables to show the full reach of the airline.