Taking Aviation to New Heights : A Biography of Pierre Jeanniot , livre ebook

Taking Aviation to New Heights
Taking Aviation to New Heights
A Biography of Pierre Jeanniot
Jacqueline Cardinal & Laurent Lapierre
Translated by Donald Winkler

University of Ottawa Press 2013
The University of Ottawa Press acknowledges with gratitude the support extended to its publishing list by Heritage Canada through the Canada Book Fund, by the Canada Council for the Arts, by the Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences through the Awards to Scholarly Publications Program and by the University of Ottawa. The UOP also acknowledges the financial contribution of the Office of the Vice-president Research of the University of Ottawa and the Jeanniot Foundation.
Copy editing: Edwin Janzen Proofreading: Trish O’Reilly-Brennan Typesetting: Robert Tombs Cover design: Édiscript Enr.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Cardinal, Jacqueline[Pierre Jeanniot. English]
           Taking aviation to new heights : a biography of Pierre Jeanniot /
by Jacqueline Cardinal and Laurent Lapierre ; translated by Donald Winkler.
Translation of: Pierre Jeanniot : aux commandes du ciel.Includes bibliographical references. Issued in print and electronic formats. ISBN 978-0-7766-3046-5 (pbk.).–– ISBN 978-0-7766-3047-2 (pdf).–– ISBN 978-0-7766-3048-9 (epub).–– ISBN 978-0-7766-3049-6 (mobi)
            1. Jeanniot, Pierre J. 2. Air Canada––History. 3. International Air Transport Association––History. 4. Aeronautics, Commercial––Canada––Employees––Biography. 5. Executives––Canada––Biography. 6. Civic leaders––Canada––Biography. I. Lapierre, Laurent, 1940-, author II. Winkler, Donald, translator III. Title. IV. Title: Pierre Jeanniot. English.
HE 9815. A 93 C 3713 2013   387.7092    C 2013-906495-8    C 2013-906496-6
© University of Ottawa Press, 2013
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
List of Boxes
Introduction: Who Is Pierre Jeanniot?
Part I  Gaston and Renée (1914–1934)
Chapter 1     Baptism by Fire
Chapter 2     The Boches Are Coming!
Chapter 3     A Train for Addis Ababa
Part II  Making the Best of Things (1935–1945)
Chapter 4     My Father, the Hero
Chapter 5     Rome: Run for Your Life!
Chapter 6     Woolen Pants and Wooden Shoes
Chapter 7     News from Christine
Chapter 8     Between Patton and de Lattre de Tassigny
Part III  Destination Montreal (1946–1954)
Chapter 9      Fate or Chance?
Chapter 10    A Sign from Heaven
Chapter 11    The Rebellion
Chapter 12    Necessary Conditions
Part IV  The Black Box (1955–1967)
Chapter 13    Slamming the Door
Chapter 14    Trans-Canada Airlines
Chapter 15    The Tragedy of Sainte-Thérèse
Chapter 16    The Inventor of the ‘Black Box’
Chapter 17    My Cabin at Lake McCaskill
Chapter 18    The Canadian Operations Research Society
Part V  On the Way Up in Air Canada (1968–1983)
Chapter 19    A Revolution: l’Université du Québec
Chapter 20    Chaos
Chapter 21    Linguistic Turmoil
Chapter 22    Goings-on Behind the Scenes
Chapter 23    Taschereau, Mackasey, Taschereau, Amyot and … One Other
Chapter 24    Open Skies
Part VI  President and CEO of Air Canada (1984–1990)
Chapter 25    The Battle for Asia
Chapter 26    Boeing or Airbus?
Chapter 27    The Smoke Extinguisher
Chapter 28    Privatization Curtailed
Part VII  Director General and CEO of IATA (1992–2002)
Chapter 29    Through the Front Door
Chapter 30    Ready About
Chapter 31    The Amman Speech
Chapter 32    Kim Jong-il, Gaddafi, Arafat and … the Others
Chapter 33    Waiting for Y2K
Part VIII  9/11 and Its Aftermath
Chapter 34    September 11, 2001
Chapter 35    “I’m Coming Back to Montreal”
Chapter 36    “The Master of the Skies”
The Authors Bibliography
Acknowledgments
PIERRE JEANNIOT is clearly the first person we must thank. Without his close collaboration, not only in the course of the interviews we conducted, but as the manuscript continued to evolve, this book would quite simply not exist. His colleague, Susan Gough-Cooper, greatly facilitated our task. Christine Jobin, our steadfast colleague at the Pierre Péladeau Leadership Chair, lent her customary competence and patience to the shaping of the manuscript. We are most grateful to her. We cannot fail to mention the staunch support of M e Jean A. Savard, QC , who, in his meticulous revision of every chapter in this book, brought to bear all the imagination, precision and attention to detail that are his hallmark. His comments went well beyond legal matters in his assessment of the efficacy of a phrase, the elegance of a verb and the appropriateness of a word. Finally we thank Céline Fournier, who believed in our project from the start, and brought it to fruition, guiding her talented production team with enthusiasm and resolve. As writers, we could not dream of having better collaborators.
Jacqueline Cardinal Laurent Lapierre
List of Boxes
1. Air traffic rights—freedoms of the air
2. Canadian ministers of transport since 1936
3. Air Canada, breakdown and projection of available funds, 1989–1993
4. Mission and Objectives of IATA , 1994
5. The Amman speech: excerpts
6. Star Alliance, oneworld, SkyTeam: a list of member companies
7. “The Master of the Skies”: article by Corinne Scemama in L’Express , August 14, 1997
INTRODUCTION
Who Is Pierre Jeanniot?
IN 2007, AIR CANADA celebrated its seventieth anniversary. A notable achievement, if we think of the “ Québécair, Transworld, Northeast, Eastern, Western, pis Pan American ” that Robert Charlebois rolled off his tongue in the 1960s song Lindbergh , and that have all since disappeared. Since its plucky beginnings in 1937 as Trans-Canada Airlines ( TCA ), this Canadian aviation company has evolved into one of the rare enterprises of its kind to have endured for more than seven decades, against all odds. If its aircraft have crossed oceans, skies and continents for such a long period of time, it means that its management was consistently successful in adapting to the technological, social and financial changes that helped define the twentieth century.
Pierre Jeanniot was CEO of Air Canada for six years, from 1984 to 1990, after having joined the company as a humble technician in 1955. At a very young age, he too had crossed oceans, skies and continents, until his mother decided to settle in Canada, where he accompanied her in his early adolescence. At the age of ten, Pierre Jeanniot already knew the cities of Montpellier, Marseilles, Addis Ababa, Djibouti, Milan, Rome and Paris, not to mention the small family village of Lombard.
The legacy of the Second World War’s military conflicts, and their repercussions, would remain with him always. Reflecting upon them, and on military history in a wider sense, he learned to appreciate the vital importance of a winning strategy. At the age of fourteen he landed in Montreal, one city among others, but the one that he would make his own. An involuntary globetrotter, he followed in the wake of his parents, and then just his mother, who twice married and twice divorced his father. He traveled by train, by air, on foot, or by boat, as fate—and his family’s displacements—decreed.
After tempestuous years at Air Canada, which were briefly interrupted when he took time off to play a vital role, for reasons dear to his heart, in the founding of the Université du Québec at the end of the 1960s, Pierre Jeanniot became director general of IATA , the International Air Transport Association. Having acceded to the highest of managerial ranks in the global aviation sector, he found himself in a strategic position during the tragic events of September 11, 2001, and had to cope with the outcome. Looking back on his remarkable story, we see that Pierre Jeanniot as a leader thrived on change, and that for him to embrace change was to embrace life, to live it fully and to achieve success. “What are we going to change this year?” he used to say to his colleagues when they showed signs of resting, even for a moment, on their laurels.
At the Pierre Péladeau Leadership Chair, we have always maintained that leadership comes from within, and that it is intimate