Emirates and Air Canada have announced the signing of a strategic partnership agreement to create more options for customers when travelling on the carriers’ networks.
Emirates and Air Canada intend to establish a codeshare relationship later in 2022 that will offer enhanced consumer travel choices for Air Canada customers to travel to the United Arab Emirates and to destinations beyond Dubai. Meanwhile, Emirates customers will additional choices when travelling to Toronto or to key destinations across the Air Canada network.
With this being a codeshare offering, passengers will have the ability to book connecting travel between both airlines’ networks with the ease of a single ticket, with easy connectivity at hubs, and baggage transfers onwards to their final destinations.
Frequent Flyer benefits too
There’s good news for those who hold status, with the loyalty programmes of Air Canada (Aeroplan) and Emirates (Skywards) planning to establish reciprocal frequent flyer benefits and reciprocal lounge access for qualifying customers.
Further details of the partnership and specific codeshare routes will be announced when finalised, with them subject to regulatory approvals and final documentation.
In Quotes
Sir Tim Clark, President of Emirates Airline said:
“This is a significant partnership that will enable our customers access to even more destinations in Canada and the Americas, via our Toronto and US gateways. It also opens up many new route combinations for travelers across Emirates’ and Air Canada’s extensive networks in the Americas, the Middle East, Africa and Asia. We are pleased to partner with Air Canada, one of North America’s most established airlines and Canada’s flag carrier and we look forward to jointly progressing on various areas to provide even better customer flight choices and experiences.”
Michael Rousseau, President and Chief Executive Officer at Air Canada adds
“As we continue pursuing our strategy of expanding our global reach in response to growing opportunities in VFR markets (Visit Friends and Relatives) that serve Canada’s large multicultural communities, we are very pleased to form a strategic partnership with Emirates, a highly respected flag carrier of the United Arab Emirates with a hub in the vibrant city of Dubai. This strategic agreement will create network synergies, and Air Canada customers will have additional, convenient options when travelling between Canada and the United Arab Emirates as well as destinations beyond Dubai.”
“We look forward to introducing Air Canada codeshare service on key Emirates flights, as well as adding the EK code on select Air Canada flights, and welcoming Emirates customers on our services later this year.”
Who needs an alliance when you have codeshares?
Emirates has always pursued codeshares with other airlines, as opposed to joining one of the major alliances – by using its muscle for the heavy lift and having other airlines feed into it as needed.
And, Air Canada is very much in this spot – it’s going to provide some codeshare capacity (one world expect from anywhere where Emirates had a entry point into Canda), to destinations on the Air Canada network), whilst Air Canada gets to place its code on services beyond Dubai.
The result should mean that easier travel for passengers – subject to the codeshares being granted by governmental reviews.
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