The then-married flight attendant, 42, and her male supervisor, 47, were convicted of “coercion to commit sin,” the National daily reported court documents as saying.

It said the pair — both Indian — were earlier sentenced to six months in prison to be followed by deportation, but an appeals court last week reduced the jail time and dropped the expulsion penalty.

The court concluded there was not enough evidence to prove that the unidentified pair had actually been sexually involved, the paper added.

The messages were exposed during a bitter divorce battle between the attendant and her husband that began in 2007, the daily said.

It said the divorce court had ordered Dubai’s telecommunications company, Etisalat, to produce the text messages after the husband accused his wife of an affair.

Etisalat provided copies of SMS messages in October 2008, allowing the husband to file a “criminal complaint” against his wife, the paper said.

The court also handed a three-month jail term to the attendant’s sister for perjury, after she claimed she had been having the affair and had been using her sister’s telephone.

The attendant’s husband has since gained custody of the couple’s four-year-old son after the divorce was finaliZed, the paper reported.

Agence-France PresseMarch 17, 2010 12:36 PM

Dubai, a regional tourist hub with a large non-Muslim expatriate population and the Gulf’s most liberal social policies, nevertheless continues to apply strict rules based on Islamic Sharia law.

A British pair await a final verdict from Dubai’s appeals court next month to find out if they will serve a one-month jail sentence over charges of kissing in public.

A British mother-of-two lost custody of her children and was jailed for three months last year on adultery charges filed by her then Egyptian husband

In his latest assault on the United Arab Emirates’-based airline, Air Canada chief executive Calin Rovinescu said Emirates is aiming to win more access to Canada’s airports only because it wants to unload surplus capacity into the country.

“Emirates’ real aim is to dump its excess capacity resulting from too many wide-body aircraft commitments, including A-380s, into the Canadian market, just as it has elsewhere in the world,” Mr. Rovinescu said in a speech to a business audience at the Canadian Club of Montreal. “As a state-owned carrier with access to virtually unlimited capital, it would siphon passengers from other carriers who are making connections en route and connect them through its Dubai hub instead.”

Because airlines flying internationally from Canada rely on connecting passengers to fill their flights, the loss of these passengers would lead to cuts in service and eventually to the elimination of some direct service to European destinations from secondary hubs, Mr. Rovinescu said. He argued that would ultimately mean fewer choices for travellers, not more as Emirates argues.

Mr. Rovinescu said he has been “particularly exorcised” by Emirates actions because the UAE has linked the debate over greater bilateral access for Canadian and UAE-based carriers to Canada’s continued access to the Camp Mirage military logistics base there. “How’s that for no state involvement in their affairs?”

The UAE has increased pressure on Ottawa in recent weeks in its efforts to get additional landing rights for its commercial airlines Emirates and Etihas Airways, suggesting that the renewal of Canada’s lease on the Camp Mirage forward operating base could be in jeopardy when it comes up for renewal in June if those landing rights are not granted.

Air Canada and Emirates executives have been waging a war of words over the past week after Emirates asserted that more flights from Dubai to Canada would generate $480-million of economic activity and 2,800 new jobs. Mr. Rovinescu last week called those claims “the stuff of fairy tales.” That prompted Emirates’ senior vice-president of international affairs, Andrew Parker, to charge that Air Canada benefits from Canadian protectionism, which it argues hurts consumers.

In his speech, Mr. Rovinescu said the key to the growth of Montreal as an airline hub lies in channeling connecting traffic through the airport. “We think we can connect a lot more traffic through Montreal between the U.S. and Europe, and Middle East and Africa, he said.
nvanpraet@nationalpost.com
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As I read this article, I couldn’t help but think how specious Air Canada CEO Calin Rovinescu’s arguments were. Having a family member living in Dubai, I have become aware of the options for flying to Dubai.

Air Canada offers flights through London with an overnight layover or through Frankfurt with a change of planes and the associated time waste. U.S. airlines offer flights from Detroit through Amsterdam with changes of planes and hassles by U.S. authorities on the return leg. Emirates Air provides a direct flight from Toronto to Dubai on modern A380 Airbus aircraft. Judging by the number of people checking in at the Emirates airline counters and the 90 per cent published load factors on their flights, passengers are voting with their money.

Instead of bleating about Emirates Air, why doesn’t Rovinescu do something positive such as instituting direct flights from Toronto to Dubai? Is he afraid of competition?

To help him face the challenges of the 21st century, the federal government should grant Emirates Air daily direct flights from Toronto with the addition of Vancouver and Calgary as demand grows.

Glen N. Tolhurst, Guelph