Emirates and Air Canada's cargo divisions signed an initial agreement to work on initiatives that will expand their capacity on a larger combined network, building on a codeshare deal between the airlines sealed last year.
Under the terms of the preliminary agreement, Emirates SkyCargo and Air Canada Cargo will expand freight interline options, offering their customers access to more capacity, the Dubai airline said in a statement on Friday.
They will also expand block space agreements, which are bought by freight forwarders for space on a flight, pending regulatory approvals.
"Co-operating with Air Canada Cargo will offer our clients added value through more rapid reach to new destinations in Canada via our Toronto and US gateways," said Nabil Sultan, Emirates' divisional senior vice president of cargo.
The cargo agreement comes after the two airlines announced a codeshare deal that started in November 2022, covering 46 destinations in North America, the Middle East, Africa, South-East Asia and India.
In 2021, Emirates ranked the second-biggest globally after Qatar Airways in terms of freight tonne kilometres, a measure of cargo demand, according to analysis by US plane manufacturer Boeing.
Emirates' air freight arm transports cargo to more than 140 destinations in a global network spanning six continents. The air cargo carrier operates a fleet of all-widebody Boeing 777, Airbus A380 aircraft and 11 dedicated B777-F freighters.
Under the agreement, SkyCargo will have access to more than 60 cities in Canada and more than 150 cities on five continents through Air Canada Cargo, thanks to a fleet of Boeing 767 freighters and the belly-hold capacity of Air Canada’s scheduled passenger flights.
Air Canada Cargo will have access to Emirates SkyCargo’s high-frequency distribution network through the belly-hold of Emirates scheduled passenger flights to more than 140 global destinations, as well as the additional capacity offered by 11 freighters currently in the Emirates fleet.
Both airlines will bring their experience in handling cargo such as oil and gas drilling equipment, car parts and pharmaceuticals on their fleet of freighters or passenger aircraft.
"This agreement enables both carriers to work more closely to optimise our respective freighter and belly capacity throughout each of our extensive and complementing global networks," sai Matthieu Casey, managing director of commercial at Air Canada Cargo.
"Customers will benefit from these additional synergies by having access to an even greater array of options, destinations and streamlined handling when shipping globally."
UPI facts
More than 2.2 million Indian tourists arrived in UAE in 2023
More than 3.5 million Indians reside in UAE
Indian tourists can make purchases in UAE using rupee accounts in India through QR-code-based UPI real-time payment systems
Indian residents in UAE can use their non-resident NRO and NRE accounts held in Indian banks linked to a UAE mobile number for UPI transactions
Attacks on Egypt’s long rooted Copts
Egypt’s Copts belong to one of the world’s oldest Christian communities, with Mark the Evangelist credited with founding their church around 300 AD. Orthodox Christians account for the overwhelming majority of Christians in Egypt, with the rest mainly made up of Greek Orthodox, Catholics and Anglicans.
The community accounts for some 10 per cent of Egypt’s 100 million people, with the largest concentrations of Christians found in Cairo, Alexandria and the provinces of Minya and Assiut south of Cairo.
Egypt’s Christians have had a somewhat turbulent history in the Muslim majority Arab nation, with the community occasionally suffering outright persecution but generally living in peace with their Muslim compatriots. But radical Muslims who have first emerged in the 1970s have whipped up anti-Christian sentiments, something that has, in turn, led to an upsurge in attacks against their places of worship, church-linked facilities as well as their businesses and homes.
More recently, ISIS has vowed to go after the Christians, claiming responsibility for a series of attacks against churches packed with worshippers starting December 2016.
The discrimination many Christians complain about and the shift towards religious conservatism by many Egyptian Muslims over the last 50 years have forced hundreds of thousands of Christians to migrate, starting new lives in growing communities in places as far afield as Australia, Canada and the United States.
Here is a look at major attacks against Egypt's Coptic Christians in recent years:
November 2: Masked gunmen riding pickup trucks opened fire on three buses carrying pilgrims to the remote desert monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor south of Cairo, killing 7 and wounding about 20. IS claimed responsibility for the attack.
May 26, 2017: Masked militants riding in three all-terrain cars open fire on a bus carrying pilgrims on their way to the Monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor, killing 29 and wounding 22. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack.
April 2017: Twin attacks by suicide bombers hit churches in the coastal city of Alexandria and the Nile Delta city of Tanta. At least 43 people are killed and scores of worshippers injured in the Palm Sunday attack, which narrowly missed a ceremony presided over by Pope Tawadros II, spiritual leader of Egypt Orthodox Copts, in Alexandria's St. Mark's Cathedral. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attacks.
February 2017: Hundreds of Egyptian Christians flee their homes in the northern part of the Sinai Peninsula, fearing attacks by ISIS. The group's North Sinai affiliate had killed at least seven Coptic Christians in the restive peninsula in less than a month.
December 2016: A bombing at a chapel adjacent to Egypt's main Coptic Christian cathedral in Cairo kills 30 people and wounds dozens during Sunday Mass in one of the deadliest attacks carried out against the religious minority in recent memory. ISIS claimed responsibility.
July 2016: Pope Tawadros II says that since 2013 there were 37 sectarian attacks on Christians in Egypt, nearly one incident a month. A Muslim mob stabs to death a 27-year-old Coptic Christian man, Fam Khalaf, in the central city of Minya over a personal feud.
May 2016: A Muslim mob ransacks and torches seven Christian homes in Minya after rumours spread that a Christian man had an affair with a Muslim woman. The elderly mother of the Christian man was stripped naked and dragged through a street by the mob.
New Year's Eve 2011: A bomb explodes in a Coptic Christian church in Alexandria as worshippers leave after a midnight mass, killing more than 20 people.
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Cryopreservation: A timeline
- Keyhole surgery under general anaesthetic
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Dark Souls: Remastered
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