How about this, you let us stay and you keep you're slots!
The
United Arab Emirates
has requested that Ottawa grant Emirates Airline greater access to Canada in exchange for extending permission for the Canadian Forces to stay at a Persian Gulf base that serves as a crucial jump-off point to Afghanistan.
The base was established after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, but an agreement between Canada and the UAE is set to be renegotiated by mid-2010, threatening the future of the desert base that offers logistics support to troops in Afghanistan.
Emirates, owned by the Dubai government, currently flies three times a week between Toronto and Dubai – one of seven emirates in the UAE. The carrier wants to ramp up its Toronto-Dubai service to twice daily.
In a letter to Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, the UAE linked the airline's route-expansion proposal with negotiations over the fate of the Canadian Forces' forward logistics base in the
Persian Gulf, an Ottawa-based airline industry lobbyist said in an interview.
Emirates is also seeking to introduce service to Vancouver and Calgary, but the UAE's request doesn't insist that those cities be immediately included in any new aviation pact, the lobbyist said.
A Canadian airline official added that Canada's Department of National Defence favours making moves to keep the UAE onside and preserving the base, but Foreign Affairs and Transport Canada are concerned about caving in because of the precedent it would set for other countries to make demands for new flights.
A spokesman for Andrew Parker, Emirates senior vice-president of international affairs, said last night that the disagreement over access to Canada's airspace is to be resolved between governments.
Last June, Emirates introduced the double-decker Airbus A380 to its Toronto-Dubai route, but complained that Ottawa unfairly restricted access to Canada, effectively shielding Montreal-based Air Canada and its partners from facing increased competition on international routes.
Catherine Loubier, a spokeswoman for Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon, said in a statement last night that “any discussion between Canada and the UAE on the administration of our air transportation agreement is conducted between the parties to the agreement, and in keeping with the normal exercise of Canada's diplomatic relations.”
Another UAE-based carrier, Etihad Airways, flies three times a week between Toronto and Abu Dhabi. “Canada and the UAE have excellent relations which include direct air services, and which provide for six flights by UAE-based airlines to Canada per week,” Ms. Loubier said.
Industry analysts, however, say the UAE has grown increasingly frustrated after Ottawa's repeated rejection of expansion applications from Emirates.
Earlier this week, Emirates released a study that it commissioned, saying there would be $480-million in annual economic benefits for Canada if Ottawa allowed the foreign carrier to expand in Toronto and introduce service to Vancouver and Calgary.
“The increased passenger traffic to Canada generated by Emirates flights will stimulate Canada's domestic carriers because a good portion of the new passengers coming to Toronto, Vancouver or Calgary will take connecting domestic flights once they arrive in Canada,” said the report prepared by InterVistas Consulting Inc. for Emirates.