Etihad Airways has unveiled plans this week to become the first carrier from the United Arab Emirates to serve Iraq.
Subject to government and regulatory approvals, Etihad will begin to serve flights to Baghdad from Abu Dhabi Airport 5 times a week starting on 26th April. From the 1st June, Etihad will also be offering flights to Erbil with 2 flights a week. Both of these new routes from Etihad will be served using a two-class A320.
James Hogan, Etihad Airways Chief Executive, said
We are committed to building and strengthening ties in our region and we are pleased that Etihad will be the first airline in the UAE to fly to Iraq. We expect to see strong demand on these routes, particularly from government and business travellers, as well as people from Iraq visiting family and friends around the world. We launched a cargo operation to Baghdad in September 2009, and have recently commenced additional cargo flights to Erbil, which we expect will perform well for Etihad. We are grateful to the UAE General Civil Aviation Authority and the Iraq Civil Aviation Authority for their support, which has enabled us to move forward with these important new services.
According to OAG data Baghdad airport is now handling around 90 scheduled departures per week, up almost 50% on a year ago. New routes launched (or possibly re-started) during the last 12 months include Royal Jordanian to Amman, Viking Hellas to Athens (and on to Manchester), Bahrain Air and Gulf Air to Bahrain, Middle East Airlines to Beirut and US-based Gryphon Airways to Kuwait and Najaf.