Just for clarity, does this agreement mean max of 21 round trip flights by Canadian carriers and 21 round trip flights by UAE carriers?

Yes.

Didn’t westjet get slots for Dubai too ….

Yup, they got slots for 3x weekly flights but have not yet chosen to use them.

The 6% increase for international flights are all the travelers from Ottawa that have to drive to YUL to take flights outside of North America. Air Canada had nonstop flights to LHR and FRA in winter of 2019 that they haven't started yet.

That will soon change for some when AF launches YOW-CDG in a few weeks. :tup:

Who would've thought that AF would start flying YOW-CDG nonstop before AC or British Airways would've start YOW-LHR or YOW-FRA.:shrug:

Speaking of playing roulette with your flights:

Canada Jetlines pauses domestic routes, plans to resume in the fall
INCLUDES CORRECTION
TORONTO
THE CANADIAN PRESS
PUBLISHED APRIL 4, 2023

Canada Jetlines has pressed pause on its domestic routes as the upstart airline refocuses on sun destinations and leasing its planes, but says it plans to resume in-country flights come fall.

The carrier quietly halted its twice-weekly return trips between Toronto and Vancouver and Toronto and Calgary in January after launching commercial operations in September.

In their place, it signed a pair of so-called wet leases, where the lessor furnishes the aircraft, crew, maintenance and insurance (ACMI) for another airline.

When we had an opportunity to operate an ACMI lease, that guaranteed revenue and guaranteed hours. From a business perspective, it makes sense for us to take the ACMI lease,” said chief financial officer Duncan Bureau….

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/busi...in-the-fall-2/

I've been surprised that the announcement of YOW-CDG hasn't induced AC to restart YOW-LHR.

That's not even roulette, that's just shooting yourself in the head with a loaded gun.

Heh. I can picture the strategy team now:

"Let's not fly during the domestic peak time of summer, and instead hit 'em when no one's expecting it: the low season"

Genius. Just like selling square tires. At this juncture, why not stay in the charter business instead of even bothering with commercial flying?

Even YQB has one nonstop weekly to LGW in the summer season with Air Transat. A predominantly french city, half the size of Ottawa CMA.

Simple humor but quite funny actually. What I don't understand is most companies need a business plan to get funding from a bank or shareholders or investors. How does Canada Jetlines even have 1 or 2 planes with this strategy. Who is investing money in this airline? It's gotta be China or the federal government or some rich person that sleeps on dollar bills at night. People complain about Flair and Lynx but this company, let's not even call it an airline, is a joke. It's like they received their first aircraft and then had a meeting that went something like "so we just got our plane, where should we fly with it".

Emirates to offer daily flights to Toronto from 20 April.

https://www.emirates.com/media-centr...from-20-april/

That didn't take long. With 2 extra A380's a week you would think they would need more than 10 days to build the market to fill them.

^ it’s first come. First served.

EK wants to make sure they beat EY to the punch. They don’t care if the first couple of flights are empty. The slots/rights to Canada are more valuable.

Mind you, as far as EY is concerned, outside of upping YYZ to daily as well, not sure they are all that interested in adding new service to Canada.

It’s looking pretty evident that AC’s probably not bringing back YOW-LHR/FRA until the XLRs show up. Maybe YOW-LHR returns on a 788 for summer 2024 but I’d be surprised.

So I guess if EY haven't grab the slots already, EK could announce 4x weekly YUL+YVR tomorrow and EY will lose out altogether? :D

I remember when bilateral with Taiwan increase from 14x to 21x, the government want to make it "fair" by offer 3x weekly to both CI and BR. BR grab it to increase both YVR/YYZ to 5x weekly. CI don't know what to do with it, so they add bare-minimum seasonal flight to YVR during off-season just to stop BR from getting them. I think in the end CI traded the Canadian slots with some European slots from BR, so BR is able to operate both 7x weekly YVR/YYZ now.

If they're not going to provide the service then
let's entice British Airways or Lufthansa to do so .

Lufthansa could have added service by now but they haven't chosen to do so.

Until 321XLR arrive, AC is funnelling everything via YUL/YYZ.