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Senior Union ministers Nitin Gadkari, Suresh Prabhu, Piyush Goyal and Ashok Gajapathi Raju will be part of a 5-member ministerial panel headed by finance minister Arun Jaitley tasked with deciding the process of privatising Air India, which may start by December. The committee's brief is to finalise the structure and procedure of privatising the debt-laden carrier. The govt wants the process to be finalised speedily and bidding to start within 6 months, an official said. "The mood in the govt is that the process should get underway quickly," said the official. The Union cabinet cleared the divestment of loss-making Air India and 5 of its subsidiaries last Wednesday. It said the ministerial panel will decide on how much stake will be divested and the universe of bidders — whether a foreign company can bid. <br/>

Air Canada expects to see growth in traffic between Canada and the UAE as a large number of people travel between the two countries, a senior executive of the airline said. Air Canada operates 3 flights a week between Dubai and Toronto, a service that was launched in 2015. “We are seeing a good number of people travelling from the UAE since we launched the service in Nov 2015,” said Deepu Cyriac, Air Canada’s country manager in the UAE. He did not provide specific information on how many people used Air Canada flights to travel from the UAE but said there has been a 14% growth in traffic between the two counties in the first 5 months of this year when compared to the same period last year. Emirates and Etihad Airways also fly to Canada. <br/>