MANAMA: Etihad Airways is planning to increase its frequency from four to seven daily on the Bahrain-Abu Dhabi sector, it was revealed yesterday. The airline, which is celebrating its fifth anniversary, has registered a 50 per cent increase in traffic out of Bahrain, said general manager for northern Gulf Hussam Al Aseeri.

“Since we launched our operations five years ago, we have been experiencing a steady growth,” he told the GDN. “Currently, we operate four flights a day, between Bahrain and Abu Dhabi. We expect it to increase to seven flights a day.” Mr Al Aseeri said the traffic in one year had grown by more than 50pc. “We expect this trend to continue,” he said.

“We offer convenient connections out of Abu Dhabi to the rest of the world. “We operate to six destinations in India – Trivandrum, Cochin, Calicut, Mumbai, Delhi and Chennai.” Mr Al Aseeri led a cake-cutting ceremony at the Etihad’s Bahrain office at the Sheraton complex.

Marking the fifth anniversary, chief executive James Hogan said Etihad Airways‘ inaugural flight from Abu Dhabi to Al Ain on November 5, 2003 was marked a week later by its first commercial flight to Beirut. “Since then, we have become the world’s fastest growing commercial airline and have flown a total of almost 14 million passengers on 87,000 flights,” he revealed.

“We have built up a global network of 48 destinations across the Middle East, Africa, Australia, Europe and North America, Africa and Asia.

“This has been achieved with one of the youngest and most environmentally efficient aircraft fleets in the world, which will reach 42 aircraft by the end of the year.” “Our plans for the future, intrinsically linked to the on-going development of Abu Dhabi as a major business and tourism destination, are as exciting as our first five years,” said Mr Hogan.

“This was demonstrated during the summer with our record-breaking order for up to 205 new aircraft, made in line with our plans to expand further and carry at least 25m passengers a year to some 100 destinations by 2020.

“So far this year, we have carried more than 4.4m passengers and expect to carry more than 6m by the end of year.” This means the number of passengers per year has grown from 340,000 in 2004 to 1m in 2005, 2.8m in 2006 and 4.6m last year.

source: www.gulf-daily-news.com