Etihad Airways, the national airline of the UAE, delivered solid operational performance in 2015 by achieving continued growth in passenger and cargo volumes.
The airline carried 17.4 million passengers last year, a significant increase of 17 per cent over 2014 levels, and operated 97,400 flights which covered 467 million km. 'We enter 2016 with confidence as a stronger, more dynamic airline that will continue to support the evolution of Abu Dhabi as a global aviation hub,' said James Hogan, Etihad Airways’ president and chief executive officer. 'We continue to face challenges, not least the protectionism of the major American and European legacy carriers. We will continue to fight to bring new competitive choice to travellers around the world,' he said.The growth in passenger demand continued to surpass the airline’s capacity increase, underscoring the strength of its long-term growth strategy, the airline said.In total, Etihad Airways carried more than 75 per cent of the total passengers who travelled to and from Abu Dhabi International Airport in 2015. With the addition of the airline’s equity partners that operate flights into the UAE capital, the combined total rises to 84 per cent of passenger traffic at Abu Dhabi International Airport.Etihad Airways introduced six additional destinations to its global route network in 2015, with new flights to Kolkata, Madrid, Edinburgh, Entebbe, Hong Kong, and Dar es Salaam, and a new direct service to Brisbane. Last year also saw Etihad Airways’ fleet boosted with the deployment of the Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner, which entered commercial service on routes to Washington DC, Zurich, Singapore and Brisbane. The Airbus A380 network was expanded with a second service to London Heathrow and new flights to Sydney and New York. This year, the airline will commence its third daily A380 service to London Heathrow, and will add two new A380 destinations of Mumbai and Melbourne, while the Boeing 787 will start flying to five new cities, namely Düsseldorf, Perth, Shanghai, Istanbul and Johannesburg.Complementing its organic growth, the airline also expanded its codeshare and equity partnerships last year. These partnerships delivered more than five million passengers onto Etihad Airways’ flights, an increase of 43 per cent over the 3.5 million passengers in 2014.Etihad Airways also reported strong cargo volumes for 2015, with 592,090 tonnes of freight and mail flown in total, a four per cent increase year-on-year. The airline accounted for 88 per cent of cargo imports, exports and transfers at Abu Dhabi International Airport last year.During 2015, Etihad Cargo enhanced its global reach by offering bellyhold capacity on Etihad Airways’ six new passenger destinations, bringing to 96 the total number of passenger destinations on which cargo services are currently provided. **************************************************************************************************************************************Airline hails code-share ruling
Etihad Airways has welcomed the ruling by the higher administrative court in Luneburg, Germany, reversing an earlier judgment and allowing it to continue operating 26 out of the 31 codeshare flights for the full winter schedule which ends on March 26.
The court ruled that 26 of the 31 codeshares are lawful. Together with the other 50 approved codeshares with airberlin, 76 of the 81 codeshares are now approved once and for all, that is 94 percent of the codeshares applied for. The other five codeshares are on German domestic routes, it said.
The court’s interpretation of the UAE-Germany Air Services Agreement also means that Etihad Airways will be able to continue with all those codeshares beyond the winter schedule, the airline said. **************************************************************************************************************************************
New flights to Rabat
Etihad Airways has launched flights from Abu Dhabi to its second Moroccan destination with scheduled services to Rabat. The twice-weekly service is operated by a three-class Airbus A340-500 aircraft.