Air New Zealand and All Nippon Airways will both introduce flights with the Boeing 787-9 early next month, with Etihad Airways, Scoot, United Airlines and Virgin Atlantic Airways also due to the fly the new stretched variant of the Dreamliner before the end of the year.
Etihad and THY will both hope to attract passengers from their wider networks across the Middle East, Africa and Indian subcontinent to support point-to-point demand. According to MIDT data, an estimated 229,000 bi-directional O&D passengers flew to/from San Francisco from destinations across the Middle East, while approximately 84,000 flew to/from the US city from destinations in Africa.
UAE national carrier, Etihad Airways, has revealed plans to launch its first passenger flights to Algiers, Edinburgh, Entebbe, Hong Kong, Kolkata and Madrid in the first half of 2015, while Brisbane will get its first non-stop flights using the carrier's new Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners.
The oneworld alliance member will launch a daily service between Stuttgart and Abu Dhabi from December 1, 2014 using an Airbus A320 configured with 12 seats in Business Class and 132 in Economy Class. The service, which remains subject to government and regulatory approvals will be airberlin’s sole medium-haul link from Stuttgart, a market it currently mainly links to Mediterranean leisure destinations.
From July 2, 2014, Air Seychelles will operate two return services per week between Seychelles and Paris Charles de Gaulle via Abu Dhabi with an Airbus A330-200 aircraft, configured with 18 flat-bed Business Class seats and 236 Economy seats. The new Paris service will complement the existing double-daily services to Paris from its shareholder Etihad Airways.
Etihad Cargo expects the service to carry large quantities of electronics and textiles to Entebbe, with primarily perishable goods destined for the Gulf region and Europe loaded for the return flight.
The Abu Dhabi-based airline’s first Airbus A380 will operate commercially to London Heathrow from December 2014, while its first Boeing 787-9s will debut on routes to Düsseldorf from December this year and then to Washington DC and Mumbai from January 2015.
Etihad Airways' MoU with Philippine Airlines is an important milestone in the long-standing relationship between the two flag carriers as well as ties between Abu Dhabi and the Philippines. More than 700,000 Filipinos live in the UAE and account for much of the traffic on the Abu Dhabi - Manila route each year, one of the busiest routes in the entire Etihad network.
Air Serbia, the national airline of Serbia, has reported positive developments for the five months since its launch in October 2013, outlining network and fleet growth and the creation of new jobs in Serbia.
