Etihad plans to enter hospitality business

Dubai: Etihad Airways is to roll out its own hotel brand in the coming years, which will help the airline to maximise its output, a top official said.

It, however, might take awhile for the airline to decide on a hotel development and management scheme that could help the airline extend its services in accommodation as well.

"It's a matter of time before we launch the hotel portfolio," James Hogan, chief executive of Etihad, told Gulf News in an exclusive interview.

"However, right now, we are pretty busy in consolidating our core business, which is aviation."

Etihad is likely to add catering and ground handling to its portfolio, which the airline currently outsources. Dubai's Emirates has, in the recent years, began developing a hotel portfolio under the Emirates Hotels and Resorts brand.

It currently operates a number of hotels and resorts while its total investment in hospitality has crossed Dh2.7 billion in recent years.

The airline will add frequencies on some of the existing routes to strengthen them. "We are adding four additional frequencies to Sydney on top of the daily flights," he said.

"Besides, we are adding Kozhikode, Chennai, Jaipur, Kolkata, Moscow, Almaty and Minsk to our growing network within the next 12 months."

Etihad, which carried 4.6 million passengers last year and 1.4 million in the first quarter of the current year, is helping in bringing tourists to Abu Dhabi, which is currently undergoing a massive reform programme.

The airline's growth plans are in line with the Abu Dhabi government's plans to transform the UAE capital into a tourism and cultural destination.

The Abu Dhabi government is investing heavily in developing the tourism infrastructure that will cater to a growing number of business and leisure travellers in the coming years.

The airline contributed Dh10.82 billion or 6.6 per cent of Abu Dhabi's non-oil GDP, which also translates into 2.7 per cent of the total GDP of Abu Dhabi in 2007, and helped generate or support a total of 48,813 (or five per cent) of non-oil jobs throughout the emirate.

"Of this total, the airline made a direct economic contribution of Dh2.8 billion [1.7 per cent] of Abu Dhabi's non-oil GDP in 2007, employing 4,107 people within the emirate," the airline said in a recent statement.

"Etihad made a further indirect economic contribution of Dh1.33 billion [0.8 per cent of GDP] and supported an additional 7,467 jobs in 2007, when taking into account the money spent by the airline through commercial interactions with a wide range of Abu Dhabi suppliers."

An additional 'induced' GDP contribution of Dh1.37 billion and 7,656 additional jobs can be attributed to money spent during 2007.

Etihad is playing a crucial role in driving economic growth in the UAE, with the airline's expansion set to support the creation of more than 100,000 jobs in the next 10 years.

Based on the airline's current growth projections, Etihad's total economic contribution to Abu Dhabi's GDP will increase by 67 per cent to Dh18.1 billion by 2011.