air canada flight 879 from toulouse, france landed at montreal’s trudeau international airport monday at 2:46 p.m., ahead of a scheduled 2:55 p.m. arrival. that brought the curtain down on the four-decade flying career of the airline’s montreal-based airbus a330 chief pilot.
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international civil aviation organization standards require captains of large transport aircraft to be under age 65.
after being laid off in the early 1990s, castonguay spent about two years operating boeing 727s and 757s for the now-defunct quebec-based carriers nationair and royal airlines, according to his linkedin page .
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even today, he says the a330 — 18 units of which are part of the air canada fleet , with two more coming soon — remains his favourite aircraft. he’ll now be able to display a scale model of the plane at home, courtesy of airbus officials, who gave him one monday before takeoff. toulouse is where the european plane manufacturer’s headquarters are located.
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and if the opportunity presents itself, castonguay says he would, well, jump at the chance to sit in the cockpit jump seat on a flight operated by his daughter.