Wadefac,
Care to provide us with any examples of EK running the competition off the routes? Since they "are widely known for it" you should have several at hand.
In my view there is plenty of competition on the major city pairs (LHR, FRA, MUC, CDG, ZRH, DEL, BOM, SIN, JED, BKK, KHI....). Most of the routes they have "all to themselves" are the secondary cities and routes they pioneered themselves. Fares on EK might be a bit cheaper then the European legacy carriers (particularly in J class) but usually they charge more than the competitors from the Asian and African market.
Think you might have meant to say AC is the under cutter and anticompetitive entity (Wardair, C3000, Canadian, WestJet (remember Zip)....).
Clunk,
That was a stretch to suggest that EK could be granted cabotage. I wouldn't put it past them to try, but I don't ever see it coming to pass. As far as emergency airlift, that would only be a concern in your worst case scenario that there is no more homegrown airlines left (or they have shrunk to a size that is insufficient for the task at hand). I find it hard to believe that a few extra flights by an Ultra Long Haul carrier could be the catalyst that sets that off. If ULR flights are so popular and in such demand then AC should operate them. Thanks to Emirates pushing Boeing to stretch the range of the 777s, they have the right aircraft for the job.
I am not suggesting that EK should be given unrestricted access to the Canadian market. The fact that one must seek approval implies that a denial is a very real possibility, I just question the reasoning behind it. Australia has a smaller population than Canada and also has a sole national carrier in Qantas yet they saw it fit to grant multiple frequencies to multiple cities. The UK has roughly twice the population, but has granted in the order of 20 times the frequencies. The same for France, Germany, Singapore, Italy etc... None of these countries seemed to be concerned about the "to UAE traffic". Also interesting that at the same time that EK is being denied permission EgyptAir will be allowed access and given their route network and geographical position they could easily "poach" the same passengers that EK is accused of taking.