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Canadian Pacific Air Lines

Canadian Pacific Air Lines, also called CP Air, was a Canadian airline that operated from 1942 to 1987. In the early 1940s, Canadian Pacific purchased ten bush airlines in a short time span, finishing with the purchase of Western Canadian Airlines in 1942, to form Canadian Pacific Airlines. CP Air battled with the government owned Trans-Canada Air Lines (TCA) for international and trans-continental routes but for the most part was relegated to flying bush routes. Grant McConachie, CP Air's first president, still managed to secure flights to Amsterdam, Australia and Hong Kong which helped grow the airline's revenue from $3 million in 1942 to $61 million by 1964.

In 1979, the federal government eliminated the fixed market share of trans-continental flights for Air Canada (the successor to TCA). While this was a condition that was pressed by CP Air for a long time, it now scrambled to upgrade its fleet and prepare for increased competition to the tune of $1 billion. In 1987, due to sporadic profits in the 1980s, CP decided to sell its airline to Pacific Western Airlines for $300 million and assume the airline's debt of $600 million. In April of 1987, PWA announced the new name of the merged airlines: Canadian Airlines International.

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