According to the carrier, the daily service aim to support traffic growth between Abu Dhabi and Turkey and connecting traffic to onward destinations across the GCC, Indian Subcontinent, North Asia and Australia.  To date, Etihad Airways has flown more than 200,000 guests on the route.

 

James Hogan, Etihad Airways' president and chief executive officer, “Since launching, we have observed a high point-to-point traffic flow between Istanbul and Abu Dhabi, accounting for the largest share of travelers on the route. This is indicative of the thriving trade and commercial relationship between these two countries, as well as world-class tourism programs. 

 

 

“A significant number of passengers on the route travel between Turkey and Northeast Asia and Australasia. Further supporting this traffic is Etihad Airways’ ongoing growth in Asia. Tokyo, for example, will increase from five services per week to daily in April 2013 and we also commenced Shanghai and Chengdu services in the last year, enhancing connections to China.

 

“We continue to look at ways to enhance our codeshare partnership with Turkish Airlines in order to develop our presence in Turkey. By putting our EY-code on their four times weekly flights to Abu Dhabi, in addition to their TK-coding on our flights on the route, we bring strong feeds onto our network and theirs, generating significant revenue for the Istanbul-Abu Dhabi route.” 

 

The daily flights to Istanbul will be operated by a two-class Airbus A320 aircraft, configured with 16 business class and 120 economy class seats. 

 

 

Flight	Frequency	Departs	Time	Arrives	Time	Flight time	Aircraft type
EY097	Daily	Abu Dhabi	09:40	Istanbul	12:50	5:10	A320
EY096	Daily	Istanbul	14:05	Abu Dhabi	20:25	04:20	A320