A couple of days ago I wrote about how Canada and the United Arab Emirates expanded their bilateral aviation agreement, allowing 50% more flights between the two countries. Not only that, but the artificial seat cap that previously existed (and further limited expansion) has been lifted as well. This means that Emirates and Etihad both have the opportunity to expand in Canada, and we’re now seeing the first concrete sign of that…
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Emirates adds more frequencies to Toronto
It has just been announced that Emirates will be increasing its Airbus A380 service between Dubai (DXB) and Toronto (YYZ). The airline currently flies 5x weekly between the two markets, and as of April 20, 2023, will expand this service to daily. That’s right, the airline is adding these additional frequencies in under two weeks.
Emirates’ Airbus A380s can accommodate 491 passengers, so with this expansion, Emirates will offer 6,874 seats in the market every week. This represents a 40% increase in capacity. Emirates states that top destinations for customers on this flight include India, Bangladesh, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Sri Lanka.
This new service follows Air Canada and Emirates recently launching a partnership (including with reciprocal points redemptions), which adds lots of connectivity for Emirates in Toronto.
Here’s how Emirates’ Chief Commercial Officer, Adnan Kazim, describes this development:
“Emirates welcomes the expansion of the air services agreement between the UAE and Canada and we would firstly like to thank all stakeholders and authorities who were involved in this pivotal agreement that will provide a boost to the aviation and tourism sectors in both countries. We have been serving customers between Toronto and Dubai since 2007, and although the double-decker A380 aircraft has been operating the route since 2009, demand arising from leisure and corporate travellers, diaspora and students has consistently outstripped the allocated capacity. This enhanced agreement represents a turning point for us in our strategy to serve our customers better, by offering more choice and flexibility, and meet pent up demand across our growing network. “
“Business ties between Canada and the UAE have grown significantly over the years and the expanded air services will help to further nurture business and trade. The expansion of air services is also an affirmation of the growing importance of the UAE to Canada’s global connectivity, which we can support through our global network of more than 130 destinations. Together with the relevant authorities, our codeshare and loyalty programme partner Air Canada, and our valued industry partners, we look forward to playing a role in facilitating more tourism and trade opportunities between the two nations.”
Where else in Canada will Emirates fly?
With the new bilateral agreement between Canada and the United Arab Emirates, we should see significant capacity expansion between the two countries.
I suspect Air Canada will add a new route to Dubai (out of Montreal or Vancouver), though that’s not due to this new agreement. Canadian airlines weren’t maxing out their UAE slots prior to the increase, so the more likely justification is Air Canada’s new partnership with Emirates.
With the expanded agreement between the two countries, airlines from the UAE have a total of seven additional weekly frequencies to play with now:
- That could be enough for Emirates to launch daily flights to either Montreal (YUL) or Vancouver (YVR)
- That assumes that Etihad doesn’t want any of those additional slots to service a new destination, in which case Emirates might only be left with three or four frequencies, which isn’t exactly a great basis for launching a route
- It seems Emirates’ first priority was expanding in a market where it was already successful, which makes sense
I’m curious to see how this all plays out, since presumably some amount of negotiations are taking place between aviation authorities in the UAE and the country’s two biggest carriers.
Bottom line
Starting in a couple of weeks, Emirates will add two additional weekly A380 frequencies between Dubai and Toronto. This comes after Canada and the United Arab Emirates negotiated a new bilateral agreement, allowing for more service between the two countries.
Airlines from the UAE now have up to seven additional weekly frequencies to play with. I’m sure Emirates would love to start service to Montreal or Vancouver, though the question is whether Etihad wants some of those additional frequencies as well.
What do you make of Emirates expanding in Toronto?
Great, now when trying to redeem with Aeroplan to the Indian Subcontinent it shows as First Class "everyday" with only the last sector Dubai-Indian subcontinent in F while the flights to get to Dubai are mainly Economy and very rarely in Business ranging from 300 to 490K points. . Business was easily accessible with 90K with a combination of Egypt Air and Gulf Air. Now it's with Egypt Air and Emirates for the outrageous 300+...
Great, now when trying to redeem with Aeroplan to the Indian Subcontinent it shows as First Class "everyday" with only the last sector Dubai-Indian subcontinent in F while the flights to get to Dubai are mainly Economy and very rarely in Business ranging from 300 to 490K points. . Business was easily accessible with 90K with a combination of Egypt Air and Gulf Air. Now it's with Egypt Air and Emirates for the outrageous 300+ points. What a joke
The Air Canada AC 56 to Dubai and onwards to the final Destination on Emirates for 434K is showing as "First Class" not even a mixed cabin considering the flight on AC to Dubai would be in J. Some poor soul would assume they were flying First Class all the way lol.
Need to find a way to bypass Dubai completely when trying to book with Aeroplan to the Indian subcontinent
I don't think that Etihad is going to add anything beyond one more weekly flight from Abu Dhabi to Toronto to make that route once daily. They have always been much more conservative in their growth given that in the US they only currently fly to New York, Chicago and DC. That being said, I think that Emirates will put a new service to Vancouver because with the Russian airspace closures, it would be harder...
I don't think that Etihad is going to add anything beyond one more weekly flight from Abu Dhabi to Toronto to make that route once daily. They have always been much more conservative in their growth given that in the US they only currently fly to New York, Chicago and DC. That being said, I think that Emirates will put a new service to Vancouver because with the Russian airspace closures, it would be harder for AC to operate YVR-DXB than if EK did so. YVR has a crazy high number of VFR traffic, higher than YUL, which Turkish already has capitalized on with their 3x weekly route. Since there are so many connections from DXB-India/Pakistan/Iran, Emirates can help facilitate that high demand from YVR. If anyone is to introduce DXB-YUL, I would say it would be AC metal flying with EK codeshare as well. Just hoping we get to see another A380 service to Canada soon.
I believe this urgent schedule from Toronto is for USA fliers travelling to middle east and Indian subcontinent. When JetBlue tie up was removed for Emirates, Emirates lost at lot of business from cities such as DTW, etc this added frequency will add routes for Emirates thru air Canada and united
@Lucky, I think a relevant addition to this article is how many more award seats (and how much they cost) would potentially be added along these new routes.
As 21 weekly is allowed for UAE carriers and Emirates have just increased Toronto to Daily A380 and Etihad offers 6 weekly Toronto 777 flights
I see the frequencies being split as 11 for EK and 10 for EY
EK daily Toronto a380 and 4 weekly Montreal or Vancouver
EY daily Toronto 777 and 3 weekly to the city EK doesn’t choose
EK could fill 2 daily A380s out of YYZ. Maybe even 3. The demand to the Indian subcontinent and other nearby destinations is massive and only growing. That said, my guess is the added frequencies will be deployed out of YVR to tap into the huge Indian community there. And, given EK and EY aren't subject to the Russia overfly ban, they have an advantage over AC for now. Ultimately AC and maybe even WS...
EK could fill 2 daily A380s out of YYZ. Maybe even 3. The demand to the Indian subcontinent and other nearby destinations is massive and only growing. That said, my guess is the added frequencies will be deployed out of YVR to tap into the huge Indian community there. And, given EK and EY aren't subject to the Russia overfly ban, they have an advantage over AC for now. Ultimately AC and maybe even WS will add a lot more capacity to/from India from multiple gateways, but this new UAE lift will take some of that now. Oh, and remember there was a diplomatic spat between Canada and Saudi a while ago so Saudia still hasn't returned to flying from Canada and so that volume has to go somewhere.
Will AC and WS be able to work out the Canada-India route bypassing the Russian airspace? If I am right, the YYZ-BOM route presently involves a refueling stop at LHR.
This is part of why I think EK or EY will start service ex YVR first. They can still overfly Russia and YVR has a huge Indian subcontinent diaspora.
Emirates is rounding out the frequencies in YYZ to prevent AC from launching more India flights. That’s the bread and butter of EK and so piling the seats into the market makes makes it less attractive for AC to launch BLR or something along those lines.
This traffic also typically books closer in so you’d be surprised how full those additional frequencies might be in 2 weeks.
If Emirates launches flights to another Canadian city, why would they only be able to operate at most 5x weekly? Prior to this new agreement, the U.A.E. had 14x weekly flights allowed between EK and EY. Emirates only had 5x weekly flights due to Toronto (I've heard this was due to a limit on seats allowed on this route due to the agreement, and EK operated an A380 to YYZ), while Etihad has 6x weekly...
If Emirates launches flights to another Canadian city, why would they only be able to operate at most 5x weekly? Prior to this new agreement, the U.A.E. had 14x weekly flights allowed between EK and EY. Emirates only had 5x weekly flights due to Toronto (I've heard this was due to a limit on seats allowed on this route due to the agreement, and EK operated an A380 to YYZ), while Etihad has 6x weekly flights. If the new limit is 21 weekly flights, and EK gets all 7 of the new slots, won't they be able to have uo to 14 weekly flights to Canada (assuming the seat cap has increased significantly and/or been abolished - If it has only increased 50% compared to the old limit, then EK in theory will only be able to have another 5x weekly A380 flights to Canada, 2 of which are being used on the YYZ expansion. In that case, EK can either launch service to another Canadian market with 3x weekly A380 flights, or 4x weekly 777 flights, assuming Etihad does not want to expand).
@ JB -- Your analysis is spot on. I believe the issue is that there's a seat cap beyond the weekly frequency cap. In other words, I think the 14x weekly frequencies were maxed out between the 5x weekly Emirates and 6x weekly Etihad flights, or else we would have already seen expansion.
So my guess is that if Emirates were to get all the UAE frequencies, the airline could fly a total of up...
@ JB -- Your analysis is spot on. I believe the issue is that there's a seat cap beyond the weekly frequency cap. In other words, I think the 14x weekly frequencies were maxed out between the 5x weekly Emirates and 6x weekly Etihad flights, or else we would have already seen expansion.
So my guess is that if Emirates were to get all the UAE frequencies, the airline could fly a total of up to 5x additional A380s, and two of those are being used for the Toronto expansion.