Etihad Airways Lands in Chengdu and Düsseldorf

Over the past couple of days United Arab Emirates (UAE) national carrier Etihad Airways has inaugurated flights from its Abu Dhabi International Airport hub to the fast expanding southwest Chinese city of Chengdu and the German city of Düsseldorf. The airline has also formalised a codeshare arrangement with Hainan Airlines and increased its minority shareholding in German carrier airberlin further strengthening its activities in the Chinese and German markets.

Etihad Airways launched the new four times weekly service to Chengdu, the capital of the Sichuan province, on December 15, opening the first link to the city from the UAE. The airline is using a two-class Airbus A330-200 aircraft on the sector with 22 Pearl Business class and 240 Coral Economy class seats.

“This is a day of celebration for the airline and the communities at both ends of the route,” said James Hogan, Chief Executive Officer, Etihad Airways. “The new services will open convenient new gateways for travel to and from Europe, the Middle East and North Africa and stimulate growth of trade between the UAE and China, already the Emirates’ third largest trading partner.”

According to Etihad executives, advanced passenger and cargo sales have been strong and the airline has already begun to look at increasing the frequency of the route to a daily schedule as soon as that becomes commercially viable. Chengdu’s Shuangliu International Airport has seen rapid growth over the past few years as the city it serves has taken on a more prominent role in the Chinese economy. Last year it was the sixth largest passenger and cargo gateway in China and will be the host of next year’s Routes Asia forum, which will take place between April 15 and 17, 2012.

Etihad Airways also launched flights between Abu Dhabi and Düsseldorf last week with the inaugural flight receiving a now customary water cannon salute from the Airport Fire Service on December 16, 2012. The airline will initially operate four weekly flights but has already confirmed it will increase to a daily operation from April 2012. The route is being served by an Airbus A330-300 aircraft, in a three-class configuration, offering eight Diamond First Class suites, 32 seats in Pearl Business class and 191 seats in Coral Economy class.

According to Etihad’s Chief Commercial Officer, Peter Baumgartner, forward bookings for the route are strong, both outbound and inbound from Düsseldorf to Abu Dhabi and through to key destinations in Australasia and the Indian subcontinent.

“Germany is a strategically important market for Etihad Airways. We have carried more than 1.7 million passengers to and from Germany since we started flights to Munich back in 2004, and now we operate 25 weekly services to Düsseldorf, Frankfurt and Munich,” he said. “Düsseldorf was a logical step in growing our European passenger operations. By growing direct point to point traffic between the two cities, we also look forward to strengthening business and leisure ties between the capital of the UAE and Germany.”