Etihad Airways to add second daily flight to New York

The flight will leave Abu Dhabi International Airport at 1.45am, arriving at New York’s John F Kennedy Airport at 7.45am, as the UAE carrier looks to boost its connections with the US.

Etihad Airways will introduce a second daily flight to New York from March 1, as the Abu Dhabi carrier looks to boost its connectivity with the United States.

The flight will leave Abu Dhabi International Airport at 1.45am, arriving at New York’s John F Kennedy Airport at 7.45am (US time) the same day, while the return flight will leave New York at 11.35am, arriving in Abu Dhabi at 9.20am the next day.

The current flight leaves at 9.40pm.

“New York City is one of the most popular destinations in our network, not only for guests flying from Abu Dhabi but also for business, leisure and family travellers from a wide range of connecting destinations,” said James Hogan, the president and chief executive of Etihad.

Saj Ahmad, the chief analyst at StrategicAero Research, said that Etihad’s increase of flights to the US is not a surprise, as the market from the Middle East to the US is underserved.

“Etihad upping flights to New York is another foray into capturing high-yield business traffic given the financial centre of the US being there as well as leveraging the political power base out of the UAE capital in Abu Dhabi,” Mr Ahmad said.

“And with no direct competition, Etihad has the pick of the bunch to spoil customers with its new airplanes and its fantastic cabin products which frankly embarrass the US airlines into irrelevance because their products and services are so outdated.”

Etihad said that initially it would operate the flights using two Boeing 777-300ER aircraft leased from its strategic partner, India’s Jet Airways. However, from May 1, Jet will operate these flights.

Etihad recently announced that it would fly daily to Los Angeles from June and three times a week to Dallas-Fort Worth from December. Etihad also flies daily from Abu Dhabi to Washington and Chicago.

In December, Etihad started recruiting from the US to meet its rapid expansion in the American market.

Mr Hogan told The National earlier this week that an Abu Dhabi-based pre-custom clearance for passengers going to the US is still awaiting the approval of the American authorities. However, Etihad and Abu Dhabi airport officials were ready for the transition.