National carrier, Etihad Airways of Abu Dhabi will commence its third daily flights between Abu Dhabi and Mumbai effective February 15, 2015, and New Delhi effective May 1, 2015. The airline will also commence flights to Kolkata starting February 15. All three flights will be operated with a narrow body A320 in a two class configuration.
With this, Jet Airways in which Etihad holds 24% stake, and Etihad will increase their weekly flight count between Abu Dhabi and 14 Indian cities to 217.
Etihad’s third flight’s schedule to Mumbai is:
EY212 departs Abu Dhabi 03:00 arrives Mumbai 07:40
EY213 departs Mumbai 09:30 arrives Abu Dhabi 11:30
Etihad’s schedule to Kolkata is:
EY256 departs Abu Dhabi 11:10 arrives Kolkata 17:20
EY255 departs Kolkata 18:20 arrives Abu Dhabi 22:30
Etihad’s third flight’s schedule to New Delhi is:
EY228 departs Abu Dhabi 03:00 arrives New Delhi 08:15
EY229 departs New Delhi 09:05 arrives Abu Dhabi 11:30
James Hogan, President and Chief Executive Officer of Etihad Airways has indicated the airline has already increased its passengers carried on Etihad’s India routes by 51% to 620,000 during the first half of this year.
Ethihad is now getting aggressive in the market. Ethihad is also adding a non-stop from AUH to San Francisco (SFO) starting December, I believe, with a Jet Airways configured 777-300 ER. In fact, I think this would be the fastest way to come to SFO from BLR or MAA, just about 22 hours, I think. That would be a good competition to Emirates as well.
Which makes me wonder, why Emirates is not joining any specific Alliances such as SkyTeam (I think that is the only one left, since Ethihad has been invited to join One World and Star Alliance won’t let Emirates come in due to SQ). Even then Emirates seem to rule the airline world. I would resign to the experts to weigh-in on this.
Emirates is a dinosaur for any alliance, plus EK itself doesn’t need an alliance, they have required partnerships in US & Australia anyways
50 minute turnaround at DEL for an international flight is extremely ambitious. How and why?