According to Maurice Flanagan, vice chairman of Emirates Airline, has suggested that Lufthansa egged on the Canadian authorities to block Emirate Airline’s bid to expand the number of flights it operates to Canada. Flanagan said the move was purely for the “protection of Air Canada”.
“We have perfect open skies to the United States, we can fly anywhere we wish with any capacity and any frequency so we go to New York, San Francisco, Los Angles they are all non-stop,” said Flanagan. “Canada we are restricted to three flights a week [which is] absolutely ridiculous when the market is there for double daily Toronto, double daily Vancouver, and double daily Calgary. The market is there.”
Emirates have denied the reason Canada gave for not increasing flights between the countries was because the current number of flights were enough to service the market. “They know it’s simply not true,” says Flanagan. “There are 26,000 Canadians working here, enormous trade between just Dubai, not just the UAE, that’s ten times as much with Switzerland but they’ve given Switzerland open skies, all in protection of Air Canada.”
He added the row had moved beyond airline landing rights and was now a bigger diplomatic issue.