Abu Dhabi: Around 7500 passengers of Etihad Airways will be affected due to the closure of Abu Dhabi Airport runway for 12 hours on Tuesday July 22.

Maintenance work on the runway of Abu Dhabi International Airport (ADIA) has caused certain changes in Etihad flight schedules between Monday July 21 and Wednesday July 23.

The runway will be closed from 2.16 am to 2.15 pm on July 22.

A spokesman from Etihad airways told Gulf News that during that time a total 90 flights, 45 arrivals and 45 departures, will be rescheduled or canceled, affecting 7,500 Etihad passengers, of which 80 per cent of them have been contacted either directly via phone, SMS or through travel agents.

When asked how passengers reacted to the news, the response was "delays in flights happen at times and we have managed to contact 80 per cent of the passenges who were expected to be impacted by the runway closure, we advised them to view the revised timings on our local website and continue to recommend that anyone scheduled to fly on Tuesday, to check the the status of their flight.

This is not just an Abu Dhabi issue, we have a lot of flights flying into Abu Dhabi from around the world, but our offices world-wide continue to contact their customers in other destinations," said the source.

According to the Etihad Airways, the first flight to fly out of Abu Dhabi Airport after maintenance work is completed will be an Etihad Airways flight 038, departing at 05:30 and arriving to Paris at 14:15 on Tuesday July 22, a delay of eight hours from the actual scheduled time.

"Customers accept that this is a fairly unique issue beyond our control and we did everything within our capability to provide passengers with the latest information and advise of any changes in their flights," he said.

According to Andrew Shupeau, Senior Media Officer in the Abu Dhabi Airports Company (ADAC) - the owner-operator of ADIA, ADAC's position remains the same regarding the 12 hour maintenance period, during which the airport will be closed. "The closure will take effect on July 22, our information remains unchanged, but we hope there will be less time anticipated during the maintenance procedure, and that the airports closure time will be minimized.

Etihad Airway flights cancelled on Tuesday July 22 are:

  • EY321 and EY322 Abu Dhabi-Dammam-Abu Dhabi
  • EY371 and EY372 Abu Dhabi-Bahrain-Abu Dhabi
  • EY381 and EY382 Abu Dhabi-Muscat-Abu Dhabi
  • EY393 and EY394 Abu Dhabi-Doha-Abu Dhabi

Guests expecting to fly with Etihad on the 21st, 22nd or 23rd July are requested to check if their flight is listed in the revised flight timings below or contact our call centre in Abu Dhabi on +971 2 69 39 800 or contact local Etihad offices to check the status of flights.