Etihad finally has a plan to make the airline work and be profitable. After some bumpy years of initial expansion followed by downsizing and restructuring, the Abu Dhabi based carrier finally is expanding in an organic and sustainable fashion. Passenger numbers look healthy as does the balance sheet. The airline is growing both in revenue and passenger numbers. That growth has continued into August 2024 with the peak of the European summer high season.
Etihad Airways Welcomed Over 1.7 million Passengers in August 2024
As mentioned above, passenger numbers have improved quite a bit looking at figures year over year. August saw the UAE based carrier welcome aboard its flights over 1.7 million passengers. That marks a 26% increase over August 2023. Also, the airline has been highly effective in selling its flights as the load factor was remarkably high at 89%. That means that only few seats per flight went unsold.
So far, year-to-date, Etihad Airways has already carried across its growing network 12 million passengers. Last year, with August wrapped up the total number of passengers carried was only 8.9 million. Therefore, in August, year-over-year, saw a 26% increase in passenger traffic.
The airline also gave us all a further interesting insight regarding the rolling 12-month passenger count. So far is sits at 17 million passengers which is higher than the total number of passengers transported in 2022. 2024 could be an extremely positive year for the Abu Dhabi based airline.
How Is Etihad Achieving This Goal?
The airline has been very carefully expanding its network and fleet while being quite aggressive with its pricing in strategic markets.
The airline’s fleet has jumped up to 95 planes from the previous 79 it had at the end of August 2023. That translates to more capacity the airline can deploy fuelling network size and passenger number growth. That has, in turn, brought to an increase in the number of destinations served by the airline. They have gone up by 10, moving from 66 at the end of August 2023, to the current 76. The latest addition we covered just a couple of weeks ago, here on the site, with them being Prague and Warsaw.
Finally, the airline hasn’t shied away from being extremely aggressive with its pricing to win over customers. This year in already a few instances Etihad Airways has done some special offers, even for its business class tickets. It isn’t rare at all to find some very good deals departing from Europe if choosing to fly EY. This is in some cases achieved by offering what is called a base fare which doesn’t include a checked bag and only the bare minimum services, which is still much more than many other carriers.
The most extreme case of Etihad Airways’ aggressive pricing I’ve come across is on the Rome Fiumicino to Abu Dhabi route. Wizzair recently entered this market, and Etihad is clearly trying to undercut the Hungarian low-cost carrier. The UAE airline is going as low as 178 Euro return on this route to try and put its competitor out of business on this specific high yield route.
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