Write Your MP's (Canada vs Emirates)

[bmc]

You guys sound just like the protectionist Americans who demonize Canadian softwood lumber and/or Canadian cattle and/or prescription drugs and/or <insert industry here>, who will attempt to find any reason under the sun to shield their underperforming industries from foreign competition.

If Air Canada and their staff didn't go out of their way to piss off their customers, then they wouldn't need to worry about foreign competitors.

AC has earned its reputation and didn't become one of Canada's most-hated companies overnight. Now it's coming home to roost. I guess the pig-headed management and bitchy unions should have realized that they can't deliver an inferior product while hiding behind our own protectionist airline policies forever. If it's too late, it's their own fault.

cpl_atc....I don't want to come down on you, but you really don't know what you're talking about here. The concerns raised here about Emirates, by AC, have been repeated time and again by the CEO's of many world airlines. In fact a number of CEO's took on EK at a panel discussion at an IATA annual general meeting.

I'm a huge fan of the low cost model for a number of reasons. I fully support competition. I believe open skies could be good for Canada. But it would be bad for the Canadian airline industry and it would lead to our jet pilots earning $20,000 a year.

A good analogy might be to look at immigration. Controlling entry into Canada could be done by restricting access to people from certain nations. Using this as a comparison to the UAE bilateral talks sees you as defending the position to allow wide open immigration to anyone from anywhere. Just open the borders. What is there to fear.

It's an exaggerated comparison, but the impact of allowing such access will be damaging. The president of AC isn't saying this without some intelligent behind it. Can you see my point?

[CD]

How did this thread get screwed up so badly? It looks like there might have been a merge of two distinctly different threads on the same topic but now it looks like complexintentions is bashing Air Canada because his thread title was replaced with the the title of the thread critical of Air Canada started by cpl_atc...

Perhaps complexintentions original title could be restored to this discussion...

[Widow]

Thread title changed.

[whiteguy]

Thread title changed.

Its not the title that needed to be changed. These are 2 different threads merged into one. The original posters have 2 completely different view points. One (complexintentions) wanting to stop EK from coming into Canada and the other (cpl_atc) bashing AC under the "Afraid to compete" title.

[complexintentions]

Actually, I don't think Emirates having increased frequency to Canada will result in $20k pilot jobs in Canada. Those jobs will be gone, period. You'll be able to make more than $20k (as a pilot - other jobs, keep reading). You'll just have to live in Dubai to earn it.

You state yourself that we screen immigrants, which would seem to suggest that it is acceptable to apply some sort of criteria to those who would advantage themselves with access to Canada. So we agree on that I think. Can you explain then why we should not do the same to companies trying to tap our markets? Emirates may throw around figures about how much money they would generate in Canada, (and those figures are somewhat dubious given they are self-generated), but I can assure you that is nothing compared to what they will put in their own pockets, that will NOT remain in Canada.

There are many reasons why Emirates is the WORST sort of corporate citizen. And that is why the immigration analogy though imperfect is very much valid. Come live in Dubai for awhile, and work for Emirates for awhile. There are reasons why they are able to "compete" so effectively, and none of them are positive to anyone. I find this quote hugely ironic:

We screen immigrants and score them based on a variety of factors (education, health, wealth, are they terrorists, etc.) so that Canada is not inundated with millions of hangers-on who would drain our resources and degrade our standard of living.

Ask the vast majority of the employees of Emirates what their standards of living in Dubai are compared to their industry counterparts in Canada. Because other than a few minimum wage gate agents and contracted baggage handlers in Canada, Dubai is where the jobs are going once you upon things up to them. Not to the same Canadian individuals of course, to desperate workers from the Indian subcontinent.

You are entitled to your opinions of Air Canada as a company. They seem to be based on dated, incorrect assumptions, but I would not tell you how to think (that's more of a Middle East thing). What I will tell you though is, you have no idea of what you are advocating with allowing companies like Emirates to come in and begin to expand their international presence.

[palebird]

Wow Air Canada won awards for service and FA's..what a joke..do you believe everything you read?? Get out much?? Fly around Canada, the USA and Europe, Asia, the UAE, etc?? If you did you would know for a fact that service in all facets for the airlines in the USA and Canada sucks, comparing AC to all the other crap in North America won AC an award that is meaningless. The Emirates, the Asians and a lot of the Europeans beat AC hands down..open up the skies and may the best man win, if AC goes down don't worry someone will pick up the pieces and start over with a better overall product..and pleasant looking and acting service personnel, something they now sorely lack.. and service is the name of the game

[bmc]

Wow Air Canada won awards for service and FA's..what a joke..do you believe everything you read?? Get out much?? Fly around Canada, the USA and Europe, Asia, the UAE, etc?? If you did you would know for a fact that service in all facets for the airlines in the USA and Canada sucks, comparing AC to all the other crap in North America won AC an award that is meaningless. The Emirates, the Asians and a lot of the Europeans beat AC hands down..open up the skies and may the best man win, if AC goes down don't worry someone will pick up the pieces and start over with a better overall product..and pleasant looking and acting service personnel, something they now sorely lack.. and service is the name of the game

It's less a question of believing everything you read and more a question of understanding what you read.

The awards are for North American carriers, not intl carriers.

[bmc]

We screen immigrants and score them based on a variety of factors (education, health, wealth, are they terrorists, etc.) so that Canada is not inundated with millions of hangers-on who would drain our resources and degrade our standard of living.
.

Why should we bother? We have thousands of square miles of empty space. Think of the housing boom, the demand for social services. Why are we being restrictive. Are you scared? Are you a racist. These are people that want to come and contribute. It can only good.


(that's tongue in cheek analogy)

[bwilly]

I'm certainly no expert, but isnt there some truth to what emirates is saying about jobs?

They claim that by adding more flights to Canada, it will in turn create an increase in passenger traffic to the smaller feeder airlines. Wouldn't that mean there would be more regional flights, and thus more pilot jobs added?

That seems reasonable to me. How is this going to hurt Air Canada. Inst it the code share partners that fly to Dubai (Lufthansa, BA) that really get hurt?

I'm not trying to argue with anyone, I must be missing something..

[CD]

Hat Trick Plus One For Air Canada

Finally, Air Canada—which won three Best in Business Travel awards last year—had the distinction of being the lone travel industry player to snare four awards in 2009. The airline was a repeat winner for “Best North American Airline for International Travel,” “Best North American Airline for Business-Class Service,” and “Best In-flight Services in North America,” and added “Best Flight Attendants in North America” to its haul.

Business Traveler Presents Winners of 2009 Best in Business Travel Awards - December 17, 2009

[Vickers vanguard]

did anybody write to any MP yet ? tell us who can have an impact on this issue ? mine is a liberal who's been there for 12 years now (.i.e useless)....I hope the conservatives are not gonna let this happen. Camp Mirage ? who give a **** ? If they still need it, they should set-up a base somewhere else.
Anybody who supports the move by the Emirates dump ****, should go and work for a couple of months in UAE, come back and tell us how good it was.