Etihad, the national airline of the United Arab Emirates, is to operate an additional flight each from Chennai and Thiruvananthapuram to Abu Dhabi in May this year.

Addressing a press conference here on Thursday, senior airline officials said that with the addition of the new flights, Etihad will offer three flights a day from Chennai and two flights a day from Thiruvananthapuram. The additional flights will operate only in May as of now, officials said.

“We are putting extra capacity into these two cities as we see extra demand in May from these markets,” said Neerja Bhatia, Vice President, Indian-Sub Continent, Etihad Airways.

The airline currently operates a daily flight to Thiruvananthapuram and a twice daily flight to Chennai.

In response to a question on whether the airline, which is yet to fully utilise the existing air services bilateral pact between India and Abu Dhabi, will look to expand to cities covered under the pact or expand to other cities in India (not covered under the bilateral), Danny Barranger, Senior Vice President, Global Sales, Ethihad, said it would be a combination of both. “Where we see the demand we will look to expand and fill it. At the same time, we also want to see where there are opportunities in other markets and other cities in terms of India where we have bilaterals,” he added. Barranger said that the airline did not have any plans to start flights to any new Indian city in the short term apart from the 10 that it currently flies to.

Airline officials said that they had not seen any reduction in passengers as a result of the temporary suspension of operations by Jet Airways. Etihad has a 24 per cent stake in the Indian carrier.

“We ramped up operations. We put a wide-body into Bengaluru and Hyderabad. We started a fourth frequency out of Mumbai. Wherever the bilaterals permitted, we ramped up operations into India,” Bhatia added.

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