Etihad marks 20 years of France flights with bigger Paris schedule

Airline now flies up to three times daily between Abu Dhabi and Paris

Last updated:
Nivetha Dayanand, Assistant Business Editor
Etihad Airways is increasing Airbus A380 services to Paris as demand for Europe travel rises this summer.
Etihad Airways is increasing Airbus A380 services to Paris as demand for Europe travel rises this summer.
Etihad Airways

Dubai: Etihad Airways is marking 20 years of flying to France, two decades after launching its first service between Abu Dhabi and Paris in June 2006.

The route started with six flights a week when Etihad was still a young airline, operating a fleet of 17 aircraft to around 34 destinations. Today, the airline connects Abu Dhabi and Paris with up to three daily flights, while its wider French network includes seasonal summer services to Nice on the French Riviera.

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France network grows

Etihad now operates a fleet of 124 aircraft to 118 destinations across the Middle East, Europe, Africa, Asia, the Americas and Australia.

The airline said its France operations have grown in step with Abu Dhabi’s rising profile as a destination and transit hub, with more travellers using Etihad to reach the UAE capital and connect onwards through its global network.

Europe expansion continues

The milestone lands during a renewed growth phase for Etihad, which is operating ahead of the capacity it flew a year ago.

The airline continues to expand across Europe through new routes, additional frequencies and codeshare partnerships, giving travellers in France more options to reach Abu Dhabi and connect to destinations across Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Australia.

Etihad is also preparing for longer-term expansion, with plans to grow its fleet to around 250 aircraft and double the size of the airline.

The growth would give the carrier more room to add destinations, increase frequencies and strengthen Abu Dhabi’s position in long-haul travel markets, including France.

Nivetha Dayanand
Nivetha DayanandAssistant Business Editor
Nivetha Dayanand is Assistant Business Editor at Gulf News, covering aviation, financial markets and commodities. A business and financial journalist with a strong interest in multimedia storytelling, she regularly takes complex financial and economic subjects beyond the written word, producing explainer videos that make them easier for a wider audience to understand. Nivetha has interviewed senior policymakers, business leaders and global financial figures both on and off camera. Her past guests include UAE Minister of Economy and Tourism Abdulla bin Touq Al Marri, Khaled bin Alwaleed Al Saud, a member of the House of Saud and the founder and CEO of KBW Ventures, Jihad Azour, Director of the Middle East and Central Asia Department at the International Monetary Fund and Indian ministers Hardeep Singh Puri and N. Chandrababu Naidu. She has also hosted and moderated panels, conferences and awards shows, bringing her newsroom experience to live conversations on business, finance and the economy. An Erasmus Mundus journalism alum, Nivetha is drawn to stories that affect people directly and to reporting that gives a platform to voices that might otherwise go unheard. She was among the first journalists to speak to Petrofac employees in the UAE about unpaid salaries, broke the news of the planned demolition of Dubai’s well-known “Toyota Building”, and helped set the record straight on widely circulated claims that a giant replica of the Moon was coming to Dubai. More recently, her exclusive interview with EDGE Group CEO Hamad Al Marar revealed how the UAE-based defence group deployed its systems along the country’s shore border and established a geofence around the UAE within 48 hours of the February 28 escalation. Prior to joining Gulf News, Nivetha worked at ITP Media, where she helped launch Finance Middle East, a new publication covering the region’s financial sector. Her role spanned reporting and editing, video production, interviews and events. Across print, digital, and video, she focuses on finding the people behind business stories and explaining why those stories matter to the audience reading or watching them.
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