1. Air Canada says it must ship lab monkeys
TORONTO -- Air Canada has dismissed a call from a U.K.-based animal rights group that is demanding the airline stop shipping lab monkeys in cargo holds.
Air Canada spokesman Peter Fitzpatrick said the Canadian Transportation Agency ruled in 1998 that the airline could not refuse to carry animals which are destined for laboratories.
The British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection brought the issue to light last weekend, complaining that Air Canada transported 48 lab monkeys from China to Toronto's Pearson International Airport.
2. Travel Notebook: Canadian tourism to India to grow dramatically
English-speaking Canadians are interested in sports and hobbies. French-Canadians are more into spiritual visits and yoga when they visit India.
That’s one of the findings in a study released this week by India tourism.
Officials held a news conference in North York to highlight The Year of India in Canada, an attempt to boost Canadian visitors to one of the world’s most intriguing and fastest-growing countries.
McMaster University professor Norman Archer conducted a study in the fall of last year and said Canada is the fifth-leading source of tourism revenue in India. Some 221,000 Canadians visited in 2009, and he predicts 336,000 will make it by 2015.
“India is not yet in the top 10 spots for Canadian travellers, so there’s room for improvement,” he said.
Archer said nearly 8,000 people participated in a survey about what they like and don’t like about India. The country was rated highly in terms of value and pricing, as well as food. Cleanliness of public washrooms was the subject of a variety of replies, he said, and others noted that tourism websites could use some improvement.
He said 37 per cent of respondents agreed with the statement that locals were warm and helpful, while 46 per cent strongly agreed.
Archer said he found it fascinating that French-speaking Canadians ranked issues such as spiritualism and yoga so highly, whereas English-speaking respondents seemed to stress having fun and taking in sports. India isn’t noted around the world for its skiing, but Archer said there’s plenty of it in the north. There’s also considerable interest in golf and fishing in India.
VIRGIN DROPS TORONTO
Virgin Air last week quietly snuck out of town, dropping its Toronto flights to and from Los Angeles and San Francisco and adding California flights to Dallas/Ft. Worth.
It’s a blow to Toronto tourism, which had Virgin chief Richard Branson in town last year promoting Toronto’s virtues after the June 10 inaugural flights.
Virgin officials said they hope to return to Toronto but that they were focusing on more “lucrative markets.”
PAY TO PEE?
Ready for new airline fees for travelling with an infant or perhaps bringing a carry-on bag?
George Hobica, founder of the travel website Airfarewatchdog.com, predicts airlines will be tempted to adopt new fees to compensate for higher fuel costs. After all, U.S.-based airlines collected more than $6 billion from such fees in the first nine months of 2010.
Hobica drafted a list of possible charges, some of which he said have already been imposed in the U.S. or Europe. For example:
Infant fee: A charge to hold a baby on your lap during a flight. Europe’s Ryanair charges 20 euros, or roughly $30, each way.
In-person check-in fee: A charge to check in with an airline employee instead of doing so online or at a kiosk.
Credit card fee: A charge for buying tickets with a credit card. Hobica says foreign airlines already charge a fee to passengers who don’t pay for their tickets with cash.
Carry-on bag fee: A charge to bring luggage in the cabin that doesn’t fit under the seat. Florida-based Spirit Airlines added a charge of up to $45 for such bags last year.
Ryanair has floated the idea of making passengers pay for the toilet, but nothing has come of it.
Although new airline fees in the last few years have prompted many travellers to choose a different mode of transportation, Hobica says most are resigned to it.
But after publishing his list of possible fees on Airfarewatchdog.com, he said the most common response from website visitors was, “Don’t give the airlines any ideas.”
3. Ontario minister says U.A.E. spat could cost billions
OTTAWA — The Harper government's spat with the United Arab Emirates over airline landing rights could cost Ontario businesses billions of dollars in future contracts, a provincial cabinet minister says.
"Local politics is getting the best of us. Canada has a very strong brand in the Middle East. I do not want to see it sullied in this manner," Sandra Pupatello, Ontario's economic development and trade minister, said Tuesday.
"Our companies from Ontario are the best in class when it comes to hospital builds. We have huge opportunities in the order of multibillion-dollar contracts and I don't want to put those at risk."
Pupatello was speaking from Dubai, where she's heading a trade mission of 20 Ontario health services companies. She cited the huge expansion in health services in the financial hub of the Persian Gulf country as a great opportunity.
Pupatello accused Prime Minister Stephen Harper of behaving like a protectionist -- not the free trader he says he is -- by denying two U.A.E. airlines additional landing rights in Canada to protect Air Canada.
"I don't know if the feds are picking some populist position because there's an election in the offing," she said. "If you actually had to push them on the facts I'd expect some consistency. Why are we negotiating a EU-Canada free trade agreement?"
The diplomatic dispute has escalated with the U.A.E. kicking Canada out of a key military base and imposing expensive travel visas in retaliation for denying the extra landings.
The decision over denying the U.A.E. the extra landing rights split Harper's cabinet.
Defence Minister Peter MacKay has questioned the decision because it ultimately led to the Canadian Forces expulsion from Camp Mirage, a key supply base for the mission in Afghanistan.
But Transport Minister John Baird led a strong defence of Air Canada. He insisted that allowing the U.A.E. carriers greater access to Canada's airports could cost Air Canada tens of thousands of jobs.
Pupatello doesn't buy that.
"Air Canada is a very strong airline, and when I recognize what the ask is, to add a couple of flights, in my view is not going to break the back of a strong airline," she said.
Pupatello said she agrees with former Liberal prime minister Jean Chretien's criticism of the Harper government, which he levelled on a trip to Saudi Arabia this week.
"I think this problem has not been well managed," Chretien told the publication Arabian Business while attending a conference in Riyadh. "I hope they will resolve the difficulty because we need good relations with this part of the world."
U.A.E. officials were reportedly infuriated with Harper after he questioned the loyalty of their country in a recently published interview.
The U.A.E. gave Canada rent-free access to the Camp Mirage base, in the desert outskirts of Dubai, and also offered free medical care to injured Canadian military personnel.
Like Chretien, Pupatello urged Harper to find some middle ground to settle the dispute. Ontario wants to deepen economic ties in the Middle East, but Pupatello said Ottawa has made that more difficult.
She said the people Ottawa has annoyed are the same people that control the fate of future business with Ontario companies.
"The decision-makers are quite frankly the people that engage with the federal government. They need to see us in a good light. They want to work with us and we hope that this difficult relationship doesn't spill over so that our companies ultimately don't get this opportunity."
4. Central American airline opens new routes
Copa continues to expand and starting June 2011 it will open three new destinations to the cities of Toronto, Canada; Porto Alegre, Brazil and Nassau, Bahamas.
Copa Airlines, subsidiary of Copa Holdings, SA {NYSE: CPA} announced that from June 2011, in order to offer more options to passengers, it will increase daily flight frequencies to various countries in its extensive route network, it will offer more convenient schedules and will open three new destinations to the cities of Toronto, Porto Alegre and Nassau.
"With the opening of these new destinations and increased frequencies from our Hub of the Americas in Panama City, Copa Airlines continues to expand coverage and reaffirming its leadership in Latin America and the Caribbean, offering more international destinations than any another hub in Latin America," stated Pedro Heilbron, president of the airline.
Heilbron also said, "The Hub of the Americas remains the most effective and convenient connection in the continent and the increase in frequencies of our flights will allow us to significantly improve daily arrival and departure schedules, so to continue to offer better connectivity and more options as well as frequent flights and connections throughout the day - even up to six connecting flight options for some markets."
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