Etihad Airways to expand operations in India, to start Kolkata-Abu Dhabi service from March 2023

Etihad Airways plans to expand its flight network in India with additional services to Ahmedabad, Chennai, Cochin and Delhi starting from early next year.

The Gulf carrier on Thursday also announced plans to launch a daily flight service to Kolkata from Abu Dhabi from March 26, 2023 providing a total of seven weekly non-stop services to the City of Joy.

The flights will be operated with an Airbus A320 aircraft, offering 8 seats in business class and 150 in economy class, according to a release.

''In parallel with re-establishing air links to Kolkata, Etihad will boost its network with additional services to Ahmedabad (bringing it up to 2 daily flights) and Chennai (twice daily),'' an Etihad Airways spokesperson told PTI.

Besides, Cochin will have an



additional 6 flights per week, bringing it to a total of 13 flights per week, starting from March 26, 2023.

An additional daily service will also be started to Delhi and Mumbai from April 24 next year.

The re-introduction of flights to Kolkata and the frequency increases on other routes will significantly grow Etihad's footprint in India, from 77 weekly flights to 118 weekly flights, the spokesperson said.

''Our return to Kolkata will also come at the same time as we go double daily to New York, providing better access between India and the United States via AbuDhabi where our guests can take advantage of our US pre-clearance facility for a seamless arrival into the states,'' Martin Drew, Senior Vice President for Global Sales & Cargo at Etihad Airways, said in the release.