JEDDAH, 23 May 2006 — Etihad Airways, the state airline of the UAE, announced yesterday that their newly established Jeddah-Abu Dhabi route opens of May 28. The new route compliments the airline’s routes from Abu Dhabi to Dammam and Riyadh.
Flights will initially operate three times a week — two on Sundays and one on Tuesday. After June 17, they will depart Sunday, Wednesday and Friday.
We anticipate a great demand on the Jeddah Abu Dhabi route,” commented Hamza Sharif, operations manager for Saudi Arabia.
The airline has been in full operation since November 2003 and already won, for two consecutive years, the title of Best New Airline.
“Etihad had doubled the size of its network in the last eight months,” Ian Lovelock, regional general manager told journalists, “And now serves 32 destinations world wide. In many we are the only Middle East carrier.”
The core business of the airline was, he said, passenger traffic to and from Abu Dhabi. However the airline had code sharing agreements with bmi in the UK and SN in Brussels as well as 170 industry cooperation agreements and commercial agreements with another 50 airlines.
“This gives us strong links into Europe and Africa. We believe it is important we extend our regional influence into areas we either do not or do not plan to serve.”
“The central concept of our business is to make Etihad an exciting proposition for those who travel with us,” said Lovelock. Passengers are termed “guests” and the services of the airline were tailored to fit around that idea.
Etihad employs people from 88 countries and this, said Lovelock, helped the company respond to the different needs of there passengers.
While passenger traffic forms the mainstay of the business, every scheduled flight carries commercial cargo. Freight services said Lovelock will form an important part of the business mix and by 2009 will have increased to five times the current capacity and total 550,000 tons per year, flying mainly to Europe, India and Africa.
The link from Jeddah to Abu Dhabi completes Etihad’s routing to the business centers of Saudi Arabia. While Dubai is a popular destination, Abu Dhabi accounts for 60 percent of the business turnover of the UAE; Dubai only 25 percent.
The establishment of the new route came at an important moment in the development of the UAE said Lovelock because the government has decided to develop tourism and business. Plans are under way for the expansion of the capital of the UAE as a tourist, cultural and adventure sports destination.
“The anticipated growth of the UAE economy will sustain our core business, passenger traffic,” he said.
