Emirates pushes for more Canada Flights...90% load factor

[Irops]

http://www.thestar.com/article/594534

OTTAWA – Andrew Parker says he's got a surefire plan to create several hundred jobs in Toronto, pump tens of millions of dollars into the region's ailing economy and boost flagging tourism numbers.

Best of all, he doesn't need any government handouts to make it happen, just the approval of the federal transport department.

But despite months of asking, that hasn't happened.

Parker is a senior vice-president at Emirates Airlines, a fast-growing airline that for more than a year has been rebuffed by Ottawa in its attempts to increase flights from Dubai to Pearson, as well as start service to Calgary and Vancouver.

The airline, which now flies three times a week to Canada, all of it to Toronto – the most allowed under the current air agreement – has so far been denied permission by Transport Canada to begin daily service.

The refusal comes even as Prime Minister Stephen Harper has been publicly lecturing other nations about the dangers of trade protectionism, warning sternly that closing national borders to foreign investments will only worsen the economic downturn.

"There is a slight disconnect between very strong policy, which is progressive ... versus the technical reality. It is frustrating," Parker said this week in an interview from Dubai, where Emirates is based.

"It is far better for economies to be liberal, to be open, to be welcoming of new investment," said Parker, who looks after public, government and environment affairs for the airline. "We are surprised and a little frustrated that at the department level we haven't been able to convince them."

The Greater Toronto Airports Authority, which runs Pearson airport, says that allowing Emirates and its competitor, Etihad Airways, to increase flights to the United Arab Emirates would produce an economic windfall – more than 500 jobs, $20 million in salaries and $13.5 million in tax revenues.

"We're never going to be a giant replacement for manufacturing, but these are important, high-end, good-quality jobs that, particularly in the current climate, I think are needed," Parker said.

The airline has garnered some high-profile supporters to its cause, including the City of Toronto and Queen's Park.

"By promoting tourism, enhancing trade and generating new investment in the Toronto region by UAE firms, the expansion will provide jobs for Canadians both inside and outside of Toronto," Toronto Mayor David Miller wrote then-transport minister Lawrence Cannon.

This week, Transport Minister John Baird said he has met with the UAE ambassador in Ottawa and that he wanted to hear from officials at Emirates, even though they've already made repeated representations to the department.

Transport Canada has told airline executives that six flights a week split between Emirates and Etihad are enough to serve the route.

Parker argues that growing ties between Canada and the UAE more than justify an increase in service. He says 15,000 Canadians now live in the Gulf nation, several hundred Canadian companies have offices in Dubai and trade is on the upswing.

And he notes that the current flights, served by a 364-seat Boeing 777-300ER, usually fly 90 per cent full, among the highest load factor in Emirates' worldwide network.

Ottawa's denials have already hurt the Greater Toronto Area, Parker says.

As a result of the uncertainty, the airline has cancelled plans for a new business lounge at Pearson, a project worth more than $2 million that would have created "dozens" of jobs.

Also on hold is Emirates' ambitious plan to market Toronto and Ontario to the world since the airline doesn't have the frequency of flights to handle any extra traffic.

[complexintentions]

What a bunch of horseshit. It's simple propaganda masquerading as news. Put it on the bloody editorial page where it belongs. How much did you pay for THIS article, Emirates?

Let's see...a senior VP at Emirates is concerned about Toronto's ailing economy. Yeah right. I for one am glad Canada is standing up to these guys. They have zero regard for contracts when it suits them - witness the current pillaging of their employees. They're like spoiled children having a tantrum because with a bilateral air service agreement they can't just change the rules when it suits them. So they find a way to try and spin it as if they're doing YYZ a huge favour. Which of course the GTAA plays along with, anything to increase the power of their little fiefdom.

So EK gains access to more frequency to YYZ and perhaps other Canadian cities. What does Canada gain? More access to Dubai? Whoopee. And in the process send more jobs to the ME. No thanks.

Believe me, Emirates only cares about making more money for Emirates. Anything else they tell you is just spin. They always preach free trade because without it they would die. But they have no altruistic motives whatsoever.

[bmc]

Filling an airplane is easy. Ryanair does it all the time with $1 airfares.

Emirates is known for low pricing. Price it low enough and they'll put bums in seats. And, they have to. They're taking delivery of an awful lot of aircraft.

Just because they're Emirates does not mean people will abandon fear of job loss, losing their homes, taking pay cuts, etc and start planning trips just because they've arrived.

[2R]

Filling an airplane is easy. Ryanair does it all the time with $1 airfares.

Emirates is known for low pricing. Price it low enough and they'll put bums in seats. And, they have to. They're taking delivery of an awful lot of aircraft.

Just because they're Emirates does not mean people will abandon fear of job loss, losing their homes, taking pay cuts, etc and start planning trips just because they've arrived.

Ryan air may also be about to charge to use the toilet
Wait until they find out how much money they could make here under the new rules they will make Can Jet look like a frills airline

[Irops]

complexintentions

I see you live in Dubai and presumably work for EK?

All about making money...you bet, last year Emirates made 1.5 Billion dollars, paid you 3 months bonus and raised your pay 15%. I didn't hear you complaining

Pillaging the employees, hardly. Clawing back some overtime and a few changes to block hours, a piss off for sure but not on the scale you complain about.

Maybe you would rather work for Canjet, Air Canada, USair, Aloha??? Look at the disasters going on there.

You should pull your head out of your ass and look at what is going on around the world.

BTW, you shoudn't drink and type at the same time.

[complexintentions]

Wow, never thought I'd find the EK apologizers posting on a Canadian forum. kudos.

If you don't think they're using the GLOBAL ECONOMIC CRISIS (capitalized so we make no mistake of how scary it is) to try and rationalize clawing back a little more than enough to survive the GLOBAL ECONOMIC CRISIS, you are perhaps the one who needs to check six to find out the position of your head.

Tell ya what, you can have my "share of the pain" as well, since it's no big deal to ya. No? Didn't think so.

Using struggling Canadian airlines as a rationalization to treat employees with total contempt, and a cowardly, dishonest approach to effectively reducing wages has to be the shittiest argument I've heard in awhile. But hey at least it's a job eh? (The ultimate of all rationalizations.)

[bmc]

FWIW...Etihad is adding capacity and anticipates growth. Air Malta is another that is adding additional frequencies and has seen their RASK increase year over year on the same capacity

[Irops]

Turns out, ignorance isn't really bliss. It's just ignorance.

So it would seem!

[bmc]

To give you an indication of just how strong the markets are for Gulf carriers, Etihad launched a fare today from Frankfurt to Beijing for EUR 120 return and that's net. Taxed in it come to EUR240, which is CAD387. Not a bad fare to share across four 6-8 hour flights. You can be sure that the fare has or will be matched by the other Gulf carriers.

This kind of typical pricing, and I mean typical, action is how you acheive 90% load factors, folks. This also puts pressure on European and Chinese carriers that are already feeling the pinch of weakening demand. Indicative of too much supply chasing too little demand.

[. .]

wow that's nuts. 90% load factor indeed.

[ScudRunner]

"By promoting tourism, enhancing trade and generating new investment in the Toronto region by UAE firms, the expansion will provide jobs for Canadians both inside and outside of Toronto," Toronto Mayor David Miller wrote then-transport minister Lawrence Cannon.

But Still won't build a bridge to Toronto Island Airport to Promote Business/Trade and jobs.

[Vickers vanguard]

Turns out, ignorance isn't really bliss. It's just ignorance.

So it would seem!

Irops, unless you lived and worked there, you have no fucking clue what it's like to work for those companies (i.e Ek and the likes..). Having wasted about 10 years of my life there, with half of it spent at what used to be a flagship airline, aka the "the Golden Eagle".............I totally agree with Complexintentions comments. Those bastards need to be taught a lesson or two about respecting a contract. When I lived in UAE, more than once, I woke up only to find out that some of the rules were rewritten overnight with no prior warning or consultation.

[bmc]

Those bastards need to be taught a lesson or two about respecting a contract. When I lived in UAE, more than once, I woke up only to find out that some of the rules were rewritten overnight with no prior warning or consultation.

1. The company picked up the tab for shipping my dog from Canada when we moved to the gulf. When I left the country, they refused to pay, denying they ever picked up charges when I came, nor recognizing it was in my contract. They wanted to charge me full dollar to ship my full grown lab in the largest dog cage possible. When they found out I decided to ship it on BA, they were all over me a like a cheap suit trying to give me a discount. I told them that my new employer was paying it and that I had chosen BA. They were outraged and demanded that I use them. I didn't.

2. I was sick for a month. I was hospitalized for part of it. They figured, no work, no pay. So they decided to not pay me, despite the contract saying otherwise. When I told them I wasn't going to take it and that I had booked my family and myself to fly home, I got paid in cash. The following month, I didn't get paid. Turns out that my boss went and got a cash advance to pay me the month before and put me down as the person asking for the money. This time, they said that I owed the company one months salary. So, I had to go through the same threat before I got paid.

Here's a story that exemplifies the mentality and ethics over there. (Vickers...it was the Five Star Tristar airline):

The company gave watches to long term employees. They had run out of watches and needed to stock up. So they sent a clerk downtown to the souk to buy watches. He found a shop that had a promotion on. If you bought a watch, you could enter to win a Mercedes. So he bought 100 watches, filled out 100 entry forms and eventually won the Mercedes. This office clerk drove a new Mercedes to work every day.

People get so sick and tired of them jerking you around that you truly applaud stories like this one. A flight attendant had ended her contract and was heading back to the UK. So had been mucked around so much that she decided to seek revenge. So, she sold her car. To three Arabs. None of them knew of the other guys paying for the car. She collected the cash on the same day, telling them that she needed the car another couple of days and that they could pick up the keys from the gate guard at the office at an agreed fixed time. She left town with no forwarding address and the three guys showed up at the same time to pick up the same car they had bought.