Emirates at the Rogers Cup

The Emirates Airline team in Canada has been busy over the past week entertaining frequent guests and business partners at the Rogers Cup Tennis Championship in both Toronto and Montreal, as the event's official airline sponsor.

PAX joined Don McWilliam, country manager, and Leyland Sampayo, eastern Canada sales manager, yesterday for the Men's Finals, where Jo-Wilfried Tsonga defeated Roger Federer for the win.

The Rogers Cup is one of a series of US Open events, which Emirates invested about $100 million in five years ago to take part in.

"It's a great opportunity for emirates to expand its brand and its reach," McWilliam said. "We partake in these major events throughout the world particularly in professional sports because we believe it gives us a great reach to the community, both young and old."

An activation program for event attendees gave the airline the chance to connect with about 500 people each day, helping to achieve that goal.

The VIP Emirates booth was set up like a Business Class lounge, with great service, drinks and food for guests to have a truly "Emirates" experience.

McWilliam said that the main message is based around the fifth year of the A380 flying into Toronto.

"We continue with very positive results out of Toronto and of course about two years ago, we started our Seattle route, which has been very successful as well. We move  a lot of Western Canadians from Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver over to Seattle with Alaska Airlines, so it's been a very good year."

Photo: Kessarne Mitchell, Emirates flight attendant; Leyland Sampayo, eastern Canada sales manager, Emirates, with wife Sandra; Don McWilliam, country manage - Canada, Emirates, with wife Christa; and Chanel Van Baren, Emirates flight attendant.