Etihad Airways expands into new markets
Guest Writers are not employed, compensated or governed by TD, opinions and statements are from the specific writer directly
Etihad Airways has announced its intent to expand its global route network with addition of Baku, Tbilisi and Dar es Salaam in the second half of 2015. This will increase total number of new destinations for the next year to nine.
The Caucasus region will be a major focus area for the airline next year, with a new service to Baku being operated four times a week from 1 October, while Tbilisi will be served three times a week from 2 October. The airline will also commence a daily service to Dar es Salaam from 1 December 2015.
This is the airline’s fourth destination in East Africa and will facilitate an increasing flow of passenger and cargo traffic between the area and UAE, as well as key markets across Etihad Airways’ North Asian network.
Flights to all three destinations will be operated using Airbus A320 aircraft in a two-class configuration, with a total of 16 seats in business class and 120 seats in economy class.
James Hogan, president and chief executive officer of Etihad Airways, said: “As a fast growing international airline, we have already announced seven new routes and three more will follow by the end of 2014, strengthening our operations in the United States, Europe, GCC, Indian subcontinent, Asia and Australia. The development of Etihad Airways’ network will be accelerated in 2015. We look forward to aligning operations and enhancing codeshare agreements with our strategic airline partners on these upcoming routes.”
Over the rest of 2014, the airline will commence services to Phuket as well as San Francisco and Dallas. While 2015 will witness the launch of flights to Madrid and Edinburgh, together with Kolkata and Entebbe. Etihad will also operate four flights a week to Hong Kong, and three flights a week to Algiers.
As part of the airline’s ongoing fleet development, 14 aircraft are scheduled for delivery in 2015, comprising four Airbus A380s, three Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners and seven A320 family aircraft. The airline currently has a total of 104 aircraft in its fleet, with over 200 additional aircraft on firm order, plus options and purchase rights for 81 further aircraft.
Comments are closed.