In the mid 1960s, Wardair Canada made a bold change to their business plan, and changed focus from the bulk cargo market out of Yellowknife to points North, and put their energies in developing the affinity passenger charter market out of Western Canada to Europe.

This change saw the airline acquire Douglas DC-6B piston airliners, which were operated from Edmonton to several major centres in Europe. In this 1965 era publicity film, we join a group of passengers between Edmonton and Kastrup Airport in Copenhagen, Denmark. Whilst onboard, the Wardair passengers are provided with some the best service in the skies at the time. It was Wardair’s early strategy to provide their passengers with hot meals on fine bone china with linen napkins and a complementary open bar service, which made the airline famous.

The high levels of inflight service were Wardair’s stock in trade throughout the 1970s and 1980s as they evolved onto a much larger jet charter airline, and went on the operate larger jet aircraft including the Boeing 707, Boeing 747, Douglas DC-10 and Airbus A300 and A310 aircraft. But this film shows what Wardair was like in the mid 1960s before the fame and fortune bestowed the airline in later years.

Special thanks to former Wardair employee Nick Hughes who had this film salted away for nearly half a century. Through Nick’s generosity we were able to digitize the film so it could be shared and enjoyed by future generations of Canadian aviation fans. We are pleased to present a small teaser clip of this historic film find: