Etihad Airways, the national airline of the United Arab Emirates, increases capacity on its daily flights between Abu Dhabi and Melbourne, introducing a brand new Boeing 777-300ER aircraft from December 1st 2013.
Etihad currently operates three daily flights from London Heathrow and two daily from Manchester to Abu Dhabi where passengers can hook up with onward destinations including Melbourne.
The three-class, 328-seat Boeing 777 will replace the present Airbus A340 fleet, delivering 252 more seats a week – a 12.3 per cent increase – between the capital of the State of Victoria and the capital of the UAE.
The service upgrade was announced in Abu Dhabi by James Hogan, president, Etihad Airways, at a business dinner hosted by the Victorian government and attended by 400 people.
“Melbourne is likely one of the best-performing routes in our global network, and has the very best passenger load factor of our three Australian destinations,” said Hogan.
“Victorians aren’t only flying with Etihad Airways to Abu Dhabi, an emerging business and leisure destination, but in addition directly to destinations inside the Gulf region, Middle East, Europe and Africa.”
Since launching flights between Melbourne and Abu Dhabi in March 2009, Etihad Airways has carried over 580,000 passengers at the route, including 162,112 last year.
Already this year, a load factor of 87 per cent was achieved, one of the crucial highest inside the airline’s network of 86 destinations.
“Our decision to extend capacity between Melbourne and Abu Dhabi reflects not just the expansion we’ve achieved thus far, but in addition our confidence within the Victorian market,” Hogan concluded.