Etihad Celebrates Busiest Four Days in Airline’s History

United Arab Emirates (UAE) carrier Etihad Airways has announced that it carried a record level of passengers during the post Eid Al Fitr period. It was the busiest four days in the history of the airline with 181,333 passengers flying with the Abu Dhabi-based airline between July 31, 2014 and August 3, 2014.

According to latest statistics from the carrier, on Saturday August 2, 46,572 passengers boarded its flights; with 45,981 flying on Sunday August 3; 44,443 passengers on Friday August 1; and 44,331 passengers on Thursday July 31. The total traffic for the four days is an increase of 36 per cent over the same period at the end of Eid Al Fitr in 2013, when 133,007 passengers took an Etihad Airways flight.

Etihad noted that load factors for this period also increased from 79.3 per cent in 2013 to 88.1 per cent in 2014 with each cabin experiencing improved performance. First Class load factors increased by 6.1 percentage points, Business Class by 12.1 percentage points, and Economy Class by 8.6 percentage points, according to the carrier.

“We’re delighted to have flown this record number of passengers over the post-Eid al Fitr period, with record load factors covering destinations from all corners of our global flight network,” said Peter Baumgartner, chief commercial officer, Etihad Airways.

“Successfully carrying more than 180,000 passengers during these four days is a fantastic achievement for the airline and we thank our guests for choosing to fly with Etihad Airways and helping set these records,” he added.

According to Etihad, its busiest link for the period between Thursday July 31, 2014 and Sunday August 3, 2014 was its route from Abu Dhabi to the Thai capital Bangkok. This was followed by its routes from Abu Dhabi to London, Manila, Manchester, Kuwait, Dublin, Paris, Jeddah, Singapore – Brisbane and Jakarta.

The UAE carrier confirms that seven of its routes had an average load factor of greater than 95 per cent during the period with the Abu Dhabi – Melbourne link ranking highest with a load of 98.6 per cent. The other top ten destinations based upon load factor during the period were Rome (97.1 per cent), a new route which only commenced on July 15, 2014, Sydney (96.4 per cent), Toronto (95.8 per cent), Manila (95.7 per cent), Nairobi (95.3 per cent), Belgrade (95.0 per cent), Hyderabad (94.9 per cent), Singapore - Brisbane (94.6 per cent) and Istanbul (94.6 per cent).

Richard Maslen

Richard Maslen has travelled across the globe to report on developments in the aviation sector as airlines and airports have continued to evolve and…