Etihad’s flying butlers ready for highest level of service

The Abu Dhabi carrier is taking on its Arabian Gulf rivals in the battle to out-pamper premium passengers.

The 13 flying butlers are from the following countries: Bulgaria, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Jordan, Mexico, Romania, Slovakia, South Africa, Tunisia and three from the United Kingdom. Courtesy Etihad

Downton Abbey’s Mr Carson would raise a quizzical eyebrow.

The world’s first flying butlers have completed their specialist training at London’s Savoy Hotel.

Now 13 of them are ready to be unleashed at altitude as Etihad Airways takes on its Arabian Gulf rivals in the battle to out-pamper premium passengers.

The team of eleven men and two women, bedecked in tails and white gloves, have been drilled in etiquette, protocol and valet skills.

But unlike Mr Carson, Etihad’s butlers will rarely venture below stairs – or rather below deck, on the airline’s brand new double-decker Airbus A380.

They will look after VIP guests using the carrier’s new $20,000-a-ticket three-room cabin on its first A380 aircraft.

The so-called Residence will take to the air in December on the Abu Dhabi-London route.

“The flying butlers will provide a level of service that no traveller has ever experienced in commercial aviation,” said Aubrey Tiedt, Etihad Airways’ vice president for guest services.

The extra space offered by the A380 is helping the region’s big three airlines offer unique premium cabin configurations – complete with bars, showers and double beds.

Sean Davoren, the Savoy’s head butler, praised Eitihad’s first crop of graduates, saying they combined “the discretion of a traditional English butler with the efficiency of a 21st-century personal assistant”.

But not everyone is convinced.

“There’s not a lot for a butler to do on an airplane,” said Robert Wennekes, who runs the Netherlands-based International Butler Academy and who has worked in the industry for 35 years.

“A butler is an executive manager of a household. I’m sure these stewards do a wonderful job, but it misses the point.”

As Mr Carson might say. “It will never do.”

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