Dubai: Etihad Airways said on Tuesday it carried 17.4 million passengers in 2015, a 17 per cent increase over the previous year.
The airline, which has rapidly in recent years expanded with minority acquisition in other carriers, also said it carried 75 per cent of all passengers travelling through its home airport Abu Dhabi International.
It operated 97,400 flights and said in an emailed statement that growth in passenger demand exceed the airline’s capacity.
The airline’s fleet increased by 9 aircraft to 121 as of December 31, 2015.
Over 5 million passengers came from code-share and equity partnerships, a 43 per cent increase over the 3.5 million code-share and equity passengers travelling on Etihad in 2014.
In 2015, Etihad added frequencies on 16 routes; Bangkok, Chennai, Dammam, Delhi, Hong Kong, Hyderabad, Istanbul, Jeddah, Kochi, Kozhikode, Melbourne, Mumbai, Muscat, Seychelles, Tehran and Trivandrum. And launched 6 new routes; Kolkata, Madrid, Edinburgh, Entebbe, Hong Kong, and Dar es Salaam, and a new direct service to Brisbane, bringing the total number of passenger destinations to 96.
The airline said it carried 592,090 tonnes of freight a mail, representing an annual growth of 4 per cent and accounting for 88 per cent of cargo handled at Abu Dhabi International. The cargo division also added new freighter only services to Dakar, Nouakchott and Douala.
In June 2015, Etihad received regulatory approval from Switzerland’s Federal; Office of Civil Aviation (FOCA) to take a 33.3 per cent stake in Swiss carrier Darwin Airline. A deal it had announced in November 2013.
