Canada and Qatar airline deal set to take off

Kandahar Airfield, Afghanistan - Canada and Qatar have quietly signed an aviation agreement that will allow Qatar Airways to fly three passenger flights and three cargo flights a week to and from the Gulf sheikdom.

Talks were successfully concluded on Oct. 25 after only three days of negotiation, according to Qatari news media.

The quick agreement with Qatar was in sharp contrast to a dispute between Ottawa and the United Arab Emirates over flights to and from Canada. It caused the UAE to kick the Canadian military out of Camp Mirage, a key logistical base in Dubai that had been used for nine years to support the war in Afghanistan.

Before talks broke down last month, Canada and the UAE had haggled for five years over greater access to Canadian airports for Emirate Airlines and Etihad Airways - an expansion that was strongly opposed by Air Canada and Transport Canada.

Air carriers in Britain, France, Germany and the Netherlands also have strongly objected to the rapid expansion of flights to Europe by Gulf carriers.

Canada had not publicized the new air agreement with Qatar, perhaps fearing potential further fallout from its escalating dispute with the UAE. Newspapers in the UAE have not published any details of the air agreement between Canada and Qatar although media there usually cover the aviation industry very closely.

The UAE placed a visa requirement on Canadian visitors earlier this week. When the edict comes into effect in the coming weeks - on Jan. 2, - Canada will be the only western country whose citizens face such a restriction.

Qatar does not require that Canadian citizens have a visa before travelling there. In a sign of warming relations, Canada is to open an embassy in Qatar early next year.

Canada could retaliate against the UAE by cancelling the six flights a week that Emirates Airlines and Etihad Airways currently fly to Toronto or by banning UAE aircraft from Canadian airspace as the UAE did when they refused access last month to a flight carrying Defence Minister Peter MacKay and Canada's top soldier, Gen. Walt Natynczyk. Such a move could cost the UAE's two national carriers hundreds of millions of dollars a year in additional fuel costs because it would add several hours' flying time and an additional stop to about a dozen passenger flights every day to the western United States and an hour per day of additional flying time to about half a dozen flights to the U.S. East Coast.

Qatar is a peninsula connected to Saudi Arabia which juts into the Persian Gulf only a few kilometres from the UAE's territorial waters. The country is the world's largest exporter of liquefied natural gas reserves.

Qatar is home to Al-Jazeera, the Arab- and English-language all-news network, which is hugely popular across the Middle East.

Central Command, which oversees U.S. military operations in the Middle East and in South Asia, has its forward headquarters in Qatar and the U.S. air force has a major airbase there.

The military was mum Thursday about whether Canada will try to negotiate access to that airbase for its military transports. Since being forced out of Camp Mirage on Nov. 3, passenger flights from Canada to Kandahar have been routed via Cyprus. Cargo flights will soon be added from a U.S. airbase in Germany.

-------------------------------
Read more Aviation News   http://www2.canada.com
View Model Aircraft