Etihad Airways continues to set new records in 2008 with its latest passenger figures for the first nine months showing a 35 per cent rise on the same period last year.
The Abu Dhabi based airline carried 4.4 million passengers across its network of 48 destinations, compared to 3.3 million for the same period in 2007 between January 1 and September 30. Seat factors in the same period averaged of 75 per cent, representing a year-on-year increase of seven percentage points.
Boosted by its busiest ever summer, Etihad Airways is set to exceed its target of six million passengers by the end of an impressive year, which will also see its global network grow to a half century of destinations and its aircraft fleet grow from 38 to 42 aircraft.
James Hogan, Etihad Airways’ chief executive, said, “The significant investment we have put into our product and service this year is paying rich dividends and we remain well on track to achieve our target of flying six million passengers by the end of the year.”
Etihad’s services to Asia and Australia turned in a particularly strong performance with overall seat factors averaging 82 per cent across the region. Passenger loads in the economy cabin averaged 84 per cent, led by Manila, Jakarta, Sydney and Bangkok respectively.
Within Europe, flights to Dublin, Brussels, Manchester and Paris all achieved average seat factors of more than 80 per cent in economy.
In the Middle East, Amman and Damascus achieved overall average seat factors of 78 per cent. Cairo remains the airline’s most popular African route, which achieved an overall seat factor of 80 per cent.
Average seat factors in Etihad’s business cabin rose seven percentage points to 63 per cent during the first nine months of 2008. The best performing business routes during the period were Toronto, New York and London.
In June, July and August this year more than 1.6 million passengers took Etihad flights, and a 20,721 passengers flew on Friday August 1, making it the airline’s busiest day in its five year history.
Next month the airline will launch non-stop flights from its Abu Dhabi base to Almaty in Kazakhstan and the Russian capital, Moscow. Etihad will also start flying in early March 2009 to Melbourne in Australia and Lagos in Nigeria. The airline has set its sights on flying 25 million passengers a year and doubling the number of cities served from 50 to 100 by 2020.