The Abu Dhabi airline, Etihad Airways has recently signed an agreement with the national carrier of New Zealand. This new codeshare agreement will be mutually beneficial for both the airlines, through un-limiting the access of Air New Zealand to the Middle East and Asia. Whereas, Etihad being a very competitive airline also be able to expand its connections in Australia and New Zealand.
According to the agreement, the two airlines will be offering codeshare flights to and from New Zealand, Australia, Abu Dhabi. What is notable here is the fact that Air New Zealand offers flights from London Heathrow airport to Auckland.
While Etihad Airways offers flights from Manchester in addition to London Heathrow. Moreover, Etihad is based in Abu Dhabi, the new and rising Middle Eastern city with all modern amenities, high rate of tourism and business arrivals.
The third destination that will come in this intercontinental network is Australia. Flights to Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, Cairns, Canberra and other important destinations are currently provided by top International carriers namely British Airways, Emirates, Qatar, KLM, Qantas and Air New Zealand. Therefore, the challenges of this route are to introduce and interlink multiple destinations for better connections such as Auckland via Australia or Sydney via Abu Dhabi. This will be an additional attraction for holidaymakers seeking multi-destination vacation or midway stop over’s.
At this occasion, Rob Fyfe Chief Executive Officer Air New Zealand expressed:
“This arrangement with Etihad Airways further extends connectivity options for our customers through to Europe as well as providing opportunities to further grow passenger numbers for our trans-Tasman and domestic services,”
The link-up follows Air New Zealand’s codeshare and commercial alliance with Australia’s Virgin Blue Airline which also has a code share agreement with Etihad Airways, hence tripling the benefits of this new codeshare agreement.
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