Air Canada, the flag carrier of Canada, recently honoured its UAE travel agents for their support over the last year.   

Deepu Cyriac, country manager, Air Canada awarded 10 UAE travel agents at its annual awards gala.   

The winners were:

1. Dnata Travel
2. Orient Travel
3. Nirvana Travel
4. Kanoo Travel
5. FCM Travel Solutions
6. Hala Travel Management
7. Al Naboodah Travel
8. BCD Travel
9. Omeir Travel
10. ATPI Travel

Commenting on the awards, Cyriac said: “2019 has been a real challenging year, yet we have managed to win the 'Best Airline in North America' SkyTrax title, the 'Best Business Class in North America' title and our Signature Suite won the 'World's Best Business Class Lounge Dining'. That is a great honour for Air Canada. On this note, I want to thank each one of you for your support."

"In 2020, we will have four flights from Dubai to Toronto (currently 3 flights) as a year-round operation starting in April; that is a 19 per cent growth in traffic and I want to thank all the trade partners and customers for keeping this Dubai-Toronto route very important," he said.

Jean-Philippe Linteau, consul general of Canada to Dubai and the Northern Emirates, added: “The performance of Air Canada is another year of success, not only winning this year's Best Airline in North America, but three years in a row and eight times in 10 years. the carrier's growth here in the market is certainly a testament to our ability to grow the relationship between Canada and Dubai. The UAE is Canada’s second largest trading partner in the Middle East and North Africa region. We have 150 Canadian companies that do business out of Dubai and 40,000 Canadians call the UAE their home. With the lead up to Expo 2020, we hope to grow the movement of people between Canada and the UAE even further."

Speaking to the travel agents, Margaret Skinner, director sales, EMEA Air Canada, said: “2019 has been a great year but a challenging one. Air Canada was hit hard with the onset of the 737 Max issue. We had 24 of those in the air at the time and were forced to ground them overnight. Despite that issue, our third quarter profits were record profits. And we could not have done that without your support."

"Right now, Air Canada is in the process of changing its age-old reservation system to the new Amadeus Altéa Suite, which will give us much better functionality to do trade with our partners, particularly with United and Lufthansa, so we are very excited and hope to have your continued support as well. We have invested very heavily on brand new aircraft, business class and premium economy class products. Next year, we are growing our capacity, and we could not have done that without you guys. Going forward, we hope to have more of your support," she added. - TradeArabia News Service