Etihad Airways

Etihad Airways has officially confirmed that it will be launching new daily nonstop flights between Abu Dhabi and Melbourne, Australia from March 2009. EY will be using a 3 class configured 286 seater Airbus A 340-600 for this ultra-long haul route. The flight timings are as follows:

EY 460 Dep AUH 2235 Arr MEL 1815+1

EY 461 Dep MEL 2200 Arr AUH 0620+1

Comments:

EY's main target market will be pax heading on to BEY, UK, Saudi Arabia and UAE and not ATH as the carrier has not as yet launched flights to the Greek capital which is surprising as it can provide huge amounts of feeder traffic to its MEL and SYD bound flights via AUH. Though to be frank, the ATH-Australia market is extremely low yielding!!!