Etihad Route Map, September 2016: The Americas

Etihad operates some of the longest non-stop flights in the world from Abu Dhabi to the Western Hemisphere, as shown here on the left-hand side of its route map from last fall. While the 11 to 13 hour runs to New York JFK and Washington Dulles (launched in 2013) are hardly short-haul, it is the airline's 16 to 17 hour jaunts to California that remain atop the rankings: Abu Dhabi—Los Angeles, commenced in October 2013, is 5th, Abu Dhabi—San Francisco is 10th. Abu Dhabi—Dallas is 15th. It should also be noted that Etihad was the first of the ME3 to serve Chicago, first reaching the mid-American metropolis in 2009 as its second U.S. city—half a decade before Emirates and Qatar finally served O'Hare.

As with the Europe map, the North American cartography is a confusing jumble of codeshare connections, a knot of blue lines nearly obliterating the destinations at Etihad actually does serve. 

The single South American route, the non-stop to Sao Paulo, gives the airline and its home airport claim to six continent service, one of only a few airlines and airports that can boast such breadth. It was therefore all the more surprising that Etihad has been forced to retreat from the market: the last non-stop between Abu Dhabi at Brazil will fly in late March, a stunning defeat for a Gulf megacarrier.

Etihad Route Map, September 2016: Europe

Continuing to perhaps unfairly compare Etihad to its larger rival Emirates, the twenty European cities which connect to Abu Dhabi is impressive coverage for most carriers. The range of destinations reveal as much about Etihad's aggressive acquisition strategy over the last decade as the connectivity to the continent. 

Etihad today has stakes in Alitalia (hence Milan and Rome), Air Berlin (hence the flight into Düsseldorf), Air Serbia (how else to explain the flight to Belgrade) and completely rebranded Swiss regional airline Darwin into Etihad regional, which interconnects the center of Europe. 

As interesting as this somewhat incongruous string of purchases is, it begins to make for a very messy map. There are far more blue "partner" flights on this small inset graphic than the single fan of bright red links to Abu Dhabi. Together it makes the route map much too busy and challenging to read: even the black city labels in Central Europe are nearly blotted out. 

Etihad Route Map, September 2016: East Asia & Australia

Continuing on from the previous post, the right-hand side of Etihad's route map shows its presence in East Asia and the key Australian routes, including Melbourne and Sydney, two of the airline's five A380 destinations. Beijing—Nagoya is a rare non-direct-to-Abu Dhabi connection for Etihad, which even has fifth-freedom rights within the route. Likewise, Chengdu is a rather daring entry into central China in what is otherwise a strategy strictly limited to primary cities—perhaps the airline was stung by the failure of its Chonqing service—one of only a handful cities that Etihad has retreated from. Qatar Airways has followed Etihad, launching flights to Chengdu in 2013. 

Etihad Route Map, September 2016: South Asia

Like its Gulf siblings, Etihad and the UAE rely on commercial, trade, and labor links with South Asia for primary sustenance. Abu Dhabi's state carrier therefore serves the region respectably, from Karachi to Kozhikode to Kolkata to Kathmandu, if, again, not quite as exhaustively as its rival Emirates, it has recently upgraded its flights to Mumbai to its double-deck A380, one of only five cities in the network that see such girth. The next post will look further east to its Australiasian services. 

Etihad Route Map, September 2016: the Near Asian & East African Routes

Picking up from where we left off before the end of the year, when we had exhaustively examined the redesign of Emirates Airline's route map, here is the example of its counterpart, barely 130 kms down the national highway in Abu Dhabi: Etihad, officially the national airline of the UAE. 

The smaller but, if anything, more luxurious rival connects its home base to six continents, shown here and in the next several posts of this week with an examination of its rather pedestrian route map from the September edition of its in-flight publication. 

Starting in this post, the routes radiate out from Abu Dhabi, as does every single flight of the airline. The airlines geographic extent mirrors, in lesser form, the six-continent coverage of its rival. All the usual regional capitals are served, but more often with narrow-body A320s than with the widebodies of Emirates. Equally well-covered are the south Asian gateways, economically important but also bridges to the vast majority of the UAE's foreign labor force.

We will look further east in Asia in the next few posts, but for now it is interesting to note the strong appearances in Kazakhstan. While a number of airlines fly to Almaty, the former capital and large commercial center, it is somewhat rarer to also service Astana, the new-built capital on the steppes. 

With far fewer routes to Africa than Emirates, Etihad has but one interesting distinction, if not exactly an advantage: its non-stop flight to Mahe is in cooperation with Air Seychelles, in which Eithad acquired a 40% stake.

Gulf Air: Four Times Weekly to Athens, Relaunched June 2014

Quite unlike the contemporary six-continent dominance of its progeny, Bahrain-based Gulf Air's fortunes have long been on a slow but steady decline. Operations as far-flung as Houston and Hong Kong, Johannesburg and Jakarta, Manchester and Melbourne are all long gone, as the multi-state alliance was pulled apart. 

Today, there are no flights to North America, East Asia or Australia, and its once-comprehensive spread across Europe has been reduced to only London, Paris, Frankfurt, Istanbul and Moscow.

It was somewhat of a victorious move, therefore, to relaunch flights to a new Euro gateway, in this case, the somewhat-unlikely choice of Athens, which, despite the economic contraction that if anything exceeds in magnitude the retreat of Gulf Air itself, at least has the advantage of being within range of Gulf Air's narrow body fleet. 

Late Evening Departures from Doha Hamad International Airport, January 2015

Staying with Qatar Airways and Doha, from yesterday's post, here is a screenshot of the departures board at Hamad International Airport from January 2015, showing the remarkable reach of the number 2 of the "Gulf 3" as part of the State of Qatar's wide-ranging campaign to raise the global profile and relevance of the tiny, wealthy emirate.

But it also demonstrates the degree to which that profile is still limited to its own initiatives: while Qatar Airway's worldwide network makes Hamad International one of the few airports in the world to link to all six inhabited continents nonstop, this is largely limited to the state carrier's operations itself—few other airlines serve Doha. 

While DOH's flight boards normally subsist of a predominance of QR flights, here the flag carrier only connects merely to Dubai, Kuwait, and Bahrain—much less grand than the ultra-long haul, hexacontinental operations such as those noted earlier this week. 

In this particular time block there are two European long-haul operations: Lufthansa connecting at Bahrain to Frankfurt, and British Airways to London, while Gulf Air also connects to Bahrain, its base. Elsewhere in the Gulf, Emirates, and flydubai do their bit as part of the "Doha-Dubai shuttle," nowadays the busiest intra-Gulf route. Looking further east, there are several Jet Airways flights to Cochin, Delhi and Mumbai, whereas SriLankan connects to Colombo at 10:40pm.

Muscat: Flight Departures, 4 December 2015

Relating to today's previous post, here is a two-hour window stretching from late afternoon into early evening at Muscat International Airport last December. While Oman Air has the majority of operations, Qatar Airways, Etihad, Kuwait Airways and Air Arabia are also on the board. Destinations are limited to the immediate Gulf states, with the exception of Islamabad, Pakistan. 

Delta Air Lines: Dubai to Atlanta, January 2016

A poster-stand placed outside an upscale travel agency in Dubai, advertising Delta's non-stop service to Atlanta, promising connections across the United States, the Caribbean, Latin America and beyond. At the time of the photo had barely a month to go. The flight was scrapped in a high-profile complaint by Delta that Emirates, Etihad and Qatar Airways have unfair advantage in the market. Although hardly the only market that Delta has retreated from (see Abuja, Monrovia, Cairo, Kiev, Amman, Bucharest, Budapest, Helsinki, Warsaw, Vienna, Cape Town, Delhi, Chennai, Istanbul, among others), Delta also stated in its press release announcing its withdrawal from Mumbai that the failure of the route was also due to the massive capacity that the Gulf 3 have added. It surely stung that Qatar launched a new service from Doha to Atlanta just months later—starting the service with an A380.

United Air Lines also pulled out of Dubai in January, and has also withdrawn the remainder of its Gulf operations, citing the same uncompetitive conditions, although here is an interesting blogpost regarding United's withdrawal from Kuwait, suggesting a different sort of government involvement.

Sichuan Airlines: Thrice-Weekly Chengdu-Melbourne, February 2013

As has been noted previously on The Timetablist, regional Chinese airlines have in the past several years cast a wider and wider net beyond the borders of China, and even beyond the shores of Asia. 

One of the most ambitious of late has been medium-sized Sichuan Airlines, whose growth has been underpinned by the growing importance of its homebase, Chengdu, which is today one of interior China's cosmopolitan gateways. 

Sichuan first made headlines with its bold announcement to fly to distant Vancouver from Chengdu, via coastal Shenyang, a service which started in June 2012. Less than a year later, the airline launched long-haul service to a third continent, Australia, with thrice-weekly flights to Melbourne. By the end of 2013, the airline had also launched a separate twice-weekly Chongqing-Sydney service.

The above advertisement boasts of this offering, with a fold-out business class shell holding its own to international standards. Fold-out luxury and privacy is also indicated by the wooden screen at the left of the ad, and if that wasn't enough Oriental flourish, a bough of bamboo is tucked in behind the inviting premium seat. 

The ad has a bit of the old school, if anything, with the service schedule tabled at the bottom (in fact this sort of information is quite helpful and normally these key details are not at all accessible in a print ad of this sort). 

Sichuan most recently made more big headlines earlier this quarter with commencement of service to Dubai, on a twice weekly Chengdu-Yinchuan-DXB routing. Although Emirates has yet to penetrate inner China, Etihad has flown Abu Dhabi-Chengdu daily since way back in 2011, joining other global carriers such as British Airways, KLM, Qatar Airways and United that have touched down in Szechuan from other continents. 

Kuwait Airways: Three New Destinations, Summer 2013

Kuwait Airways is a bit of a dinosaur in the ecosystem of the Middle East's fast-moving air space, having long-since been eclipsed by the megacarrier trio of Emirates, Etihad and Qatar Airways, and having receded from its previous extents, which once reached as far as Chicago, Tokyo, and Singapore. In the present era, the slow-moving state carrier boasts when it returns to such nearby nations as Turkey. Here, an advert from mid-2013, showing a rather cautious re-entry into southeastern Europe, with two weekly flights to Vienna and Sarajevo, and a mere 3-weekly flights to Istanbul, now the sixth-busiest airport in Europe.

Evening departures from Bahrain International Airport

Gulf Air continues to dominate the evening flight board out of Bahrain, with flights to Jeddah, Dubai (both DXB and DWC), Kuwait, Riyadh and Muscat. In addition, nearly all the major flag carriers of the Middle East are present: Emirates to Dubai, Etihad to Abu Dhabi, Qatar to Doha, Kuwait Airways to Kuwait, Iran Air to Mashhad, and Saudia to Riyadh, and Royal Jordanian to Amman. Low-cost Air Arabia flies to Sharjah. at 6:40, as does Air India Express to Kochi—the only flight outside the Gulf. 

Saudia: The only non-stop flight between Los Angeles and Saudi Arabia, 2014

Continuing to look at advertisements for new long-haul service out of California, this glossy magazine page celebrates the launch of thrice-weekly Los Angeles-Jeddah-Riyadh service on a brand-new Saudia B777-368ER. Interestingly, Saudia arrived at LAX before its fast-growing Gulf rivals Qatar Airways, and Etihad; since the March launch Etihad has commenced A340 flights to Abu Dhabi, and   Emirates operates the world's longest A380 route to L.A., but still Qatar Airways has yet to land in Hollywood.

Royal Jordanian: Amman to Lagos and Accra, July 2013

One of the newest entries into the fast-growing West African aviation market is Royal Jordanian, which  last month commenced a twice-weekly Amman-Lagos-Accra service on Wednesdays and Fridays. These colorfully-designed announcements appeared on the airline's website at the beginning of the summer.

While not as rapidly-expanding as the trio of Gulf supercarriers Emirates, Etihad, and Qatar Airways, little Royal Jordanian has reached Ghana before either of the latter two, using its dashing, charcoal-grey A330, according to Airline Route, which also notes a lack of local traffic rights between the two West African cities. Emirates flies to both Lagos and Accra daily, with the Accra service, usually on a massive A340, skipping on to Abidjan before returning to Dubai.

Qatar Airways to Chicago, April 2013

Qatar Airways, continuing its rapid, worldwide expansion by adding a fourth destination in the United States last month: Chicago O'Hare. The ultra-long range B777-300ER will ply the 13-hour route just three time per week until June, when the service will become daily, in time for the scorching season in both places. The move comes well-ahead, but presumably related to, Qatar's admission to the OneWorld alliance, which will involve greater coordination with American Airlines, which of course has a huge hub at ORD.

Qatar joins Etihad Airways as the second of the three fast-growing Gulf super-carrier to land at O'Hare. Now also a daily service, Etihad's extended range A340-500s have been descending over Lake Michigan since September 2009. Interestingly, this leaves Emirates, the mack-daddy of Middle Eastern mega-airlines, as the only one of the three rivals to not service the midwestern metropolis, despite serving smaller, secondary US hubs such as Dallas, San Francisco and Seattle for several years.

Intercontinental Destinations from Munich, Summer 2011

Munich's gorgeous and efficient airport may not be a first-tier European gateway, nonetheless its status as a Lufthansa "fortress hub," second only to Frankfurt, and the presence of a number of international airlines, provides Bavaria connections with five continents, with an increasing list of global carriers from the Middle East, Russia, and East Asia adding to the scope of Munich's reach. The Eastern portion of this map will be detailed in the next post.

Wealthy Bavaria is also linked directly with several leisure destinations, including the Maldives and Mombasa, and the Namibian capital, Windhoek, which to this day retains one of the largest German-speaking communities in Africa.

Etihad Airways: Chicago to Abu Dhabi.

The city of broad shoulders is bridged with the city of bottomless pockets: Etihad Airways flight EY150/151, linking the Midwestern Megalopolis with the Middle East, 15 hours 20 minutes eastbound, 14 hours westbound. Passing this time in the luxurious pods of Diamond First Class aboard an A340-500 or -600 comes in at nearly AED49,000, or just north of US$13,000.

Etihad Airways: African, European & North American Routes, 2011

Etihad is far behind its rival Emirates, especially in terms of African routes. It had fewer North American destinations (and has no A380s) although it has successfully served Chicago O'Hare non-stop with an A340-500 for more than a year. The airline also links Abu Dhabi with smaller cities like Geneva, Minsk, Kiev, Brussels, and Dublin.