The codeshare partnership between Emirates and Air Canada has been enhanced further, extending to flights to and from Montreal. Emirates recently started daily service between Dubai and Montreal and has now included the option of serving more than 10 cities beyond Montreal in Canada as well as its global network.

Codeshare expanded

Emirates and Air Canada have expanded their codeshare partnership following the launch of Emirates’ service to Montreal a few months back. This move allows Emirates customers to plan travel between 11 popular domestic points beyond Montréal and destinations on Emirates’ global, utilizing both airlines' services conveniently on a single ticket.

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The codeshare partnership between the two airlines provides passengers the option and flexibility through connections via Canada’s two largest cities to points such as Halifax, Edmonton, Ottawa, and Calgary. From Toronto, Emirates’ customers can already travel to 19 points through codeshare benefits and an additional 100 through an interline arrangement.

Strengthening Canadian ties

This development comes just months after Emirates began serving Montreal in Canada. The carrier operates a daily flight between Dubai and Montreal using its Boeing 777 aircraft. The service, a first between Montreal and the UAE, began on July 5th.

Even though it began merely two months after it was announced, the high travel season helped fill the aircraft seats. There’s plenty of room for growth on this route, as in 2019, the Montreal-Dubai point-to-point (P2P) market consisted of 22,000 roundtrip passengers.

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The service is also expected to benefit from passengers connecting over Montreal to certain Canadian and US cities with Air Canada, which will be particularly important in the low season, as observed by Simple Flying in a previous analysis of this flight.

Plenty of scope

Of course, Emirates’ Montreal service is in addition to daily services between Dubai and Toronto by both Emirates and Air Canada. While Air Canada uses its Boeing 787 Dreamliner on the route, Emirates deploys its biggest aircraft, the Airbus A380, between the two cities.

Customers traveling from Canadian cities can easily connect to Emirates’ services in Montréal or Toronto to travel to destinations across Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, via the airline’s hub in Dubai.

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In addition to passenger services, Emirates also provides cargo operations to Canada to support the worldwide movement of commodities and goods. It can carry 20 tonnes of cargo in the belly holds of its Boeing 777 passenger aircraft and up to 15 tonnes aboard its A380.

The UAE is also Canada's largest export market in the Middle East and North Africa. In 2022, bilateral trade between Canada and the UAE exceeded C$2.6 billion (US$1.92 billion), growing 53% over the last five years. Clearly, direct air connectivity between the two countries is expected to play an important role in the years to come.

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