Air Canada & Emirates Launch Partnership

Air Canada and Emirates have just announced plans to form a strategic partnership, which has the potential to be interesting on at least two fronts.

Air Canada & Emirates strategic partnership basics

Air Canada and the United Arab Emirates have signed a partnership.

• Air Canada & Emirates will launch a codeshare partnership later in 2022, giving Air Canada travelers more flight options beyond Dubai, and giving Emirates travelers more flight options beyond Toronto
• This will allow customers to book connecting travel between both airlines’ networks on a single ticket, creating more seamless check-in and baggage transfers
• The two airlines intend to establish reciprocal frequent flyer benefits and reciprocal lounge access for qualifying customers; the details of this will be announced when the agreement is finalized

Air Canada and Emirates both operate up to 5x weekly flights between Toronto and the Middle East. Air Canada doesn't have flights from anywhere else in Canada to the U.S.

Air Canada has been prevented from competing with foreign airlines by the Canadian government. The Canadian government has restrictions on the amount of flights that can be added.

Air Canada has been able to operate to Dubai, but it has not been able to connect with other airlines.

The two airlines are now working together. It is possible that this will lead to more access to other gateways in Canada for Emirates.

Air Canada has a codeshare agreement with Qatar Airways that allows it to connect to other destinations in the Middle East. Frequent flyer reciprocity is not offered by the airlines.

What does this mean for Air Canada Aeroplan?

Air Canada Aeroplan is one of my favorite frequent flyer programs due to the fact that it has more airline partners than any other program in the world, as well as being able to stop for 5000 points one way.

When I heard about a new partnership between Air Canada and Emirates, I immediately thought about Aeroplan points being able to be redeemed for travel on the airline.

I wonder if that is going to happen.

• It does sound like we should expect reciprocal points earning and redemption opportunities; that was never promised when Air Canada and Qatar Airways introduced a codeshare agreement, so I do expect we’ll see that here
• That being said, with few exceptions, Emirates restricts first class award availability primarily to members of its own Skywards program, and I doubt Aeroplan will get an exception to that; my guess is that Aeroplan points will be redeemable for Emirates economy and business class, but not for first class
• Who knows, the folks at Aeroplan seem to be pretty convincing with airline partners, so maybe they’ll get us some first class awards as well 😉

Aeroplan points can be redeemed in business class without fuel surcharges, which is a huge value-add. Aeroplan allows you to mix and match partners and add stopovers for a reasonable price. It would be a great development if that happened.

Aeroplan has partnerships with a number of airlines in the Middle East.

Bottom line

A codeshare agreement, points earning, and frequent flyer perk will be included in a new partnership between Air Canada and the Emirates airline.

It sounds like we should expect Aeroplan points to eventually be redeemed on the airline. First class awards wouldn't be bookable.

What do you think about the partnership between Air Canada and the airline?