Corporate press information

Air France announced today the winning entry from its contest titled ‘60 years of memories in Canada.’ The prize-winning snapshot features an Air France Boeing 747 against a backdrop of Montréal fall colours.

The amateur photographer and contest winner*, a member of the YUL-YMX Watch Group, can be “spotted” regularly on Chemin St-François snapping pictures of airplanes taking off and landing at Montréal-Trudeau. “My dad would take me there when I was a child. He too was a plane spotter,” explained the contest winner. The winning photo was taken October 14, 2009.

‘Over and above the late day lighting captured in this photo, you have these two monuments overlapping one another: a Boeing 747, a monument to civil aviation, and in the background, the St. Joseph Oratory, a Montréal architectural monument,” commented Bénédicte Duval, Vice-President and General Manager of Air France-KLM Canada and jury chair.

Jacques Robert, a professional photographer and member of the jury, added: “It’s a simple yet powerful composition that evokes the power of the “machine,” i.e. the Boeing 747, symbolizing the airline, and the allusion to the number of passengers it flies each day to and from Montréal.’

The winner will be awarded the grand prize, wherein he and the travelling companion of his choice will travel to Paris aboard an Air France Airbus A380 for a special one-day-only flight this October 7 to mark the airline’s 60th anniversary. This will be the first time a commercial Airbus A380 touches down at Montréal-Trudeau. It will arrive at 17h20, and fly out that same evening at 19h50. This regular flight is also available to the public.

Air France awarded secondary prizes to 10 other photo entries, some of which date as far back as the 1950s.

October 5 will mark 60 years to the day the inaugural Montréal-Paris flight occurred, and Air France will be celebrating the anniversary with its 170 employees in Canada as well as its retired employees. Also in attendance will be staff from KLM and members of the Delta Air Lines sales team in Canada, Air France’s partners in the recent North American joint venture the three airlines recently entered into.

*The winner’s name cannot be disclosed for security reasons, since the prize constitutes flight tickets for travel on a predetermined date.

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