Dubai: Etihad airways CEO Tony Douglas on Wednesday said that the airline’s ticket sales would surge by up to 600 per cent whenever a destination is added to Abu Dhabi’s ‘green list.’
“What we’ve observed here in Abu Dhabi is every time a country goes on to the green list, within the following week, our sales go up anywhere between 3 per cent and 600 per cent,” said Douglas speaking during a Centre for Aviation (CAPA) event.
This “signals to everybody the absolute latent demand” on certain air routes, he added.
Best month
Douglas added that July was Etihad’s best month in the last year and a half with average load factor at over 40 per cent, compared to 25 per cent in the early part of 2021.
This was helped by “vaccination curves increasing in many countries (along with) the slight easing in travel restrictions that follows,” said the airline head.
Abu Dhabi recently said that fully vaccinated passengers coming into the emirate from any country will no longer be required to quarantine on arrival.
“Abu Dhabi has been one of the best led places in the world, in dealing with this pandemic. It’s been holistic and all-encompassing and public health, wellbeing has been priority number one, by some distance,” said Douglas.
Separately, Etihad said its flights to Saudi Arabia will resume “soon”. “From 8 September, the authorities in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia have lifted the flight restrictions on travel to and from the UAE,” said the airline on its website.
