UAE's Etihad plans all-economy flights to meet demand

UAE’s Etihad plans all-economy flights to meet demand

Abu Dhabi's Etihad Airways to introduce an all economy service in October on short-haul routes to meet demand for lower fares.

August 6, 2010 8:58 by Reuters

Abu Dhabi’s Etihad Airways said on Thursday it will introduce an all economy service in October on short-haul routes to meet demand for lower fares.

The carrier will deploy two Airbus A320 aircraft on the initial flights to Alexandria, Calicut, Colombo, Damascus, Doha and Thiruvananthapuram, it said in a statement.

“The all economy cabin aircraft will operate to short haul Etihad destinations, which have high demand for economy traffic and low demand for premium traffic,” it said.

Etihad plans to expand the all-economy fleet to 10 A320 aircraft to enable it to launch new short haul destinations and meet demand for lower fairs on its existing ones.

“Our all-economy aircraft will allow us to offer a more competitive product in key point-to-point markets in Asia, the Middle East, North Africa and the Indian Subcontinent…,”Chief Executive James Hogan said in the statement. The company reported cargo revenue growth of 59 percent in the first half of 2010 as increased traffic pushed up passenger figures 11 percent.

The airline carried 3.3 million passengers in the period, recording a 72.5 percent seat factor, while cargo tonnage increased 22 percent from a year earlier, it said in July. (Reporting by Tamara Walid; Editing by Firouz Sedarat)