Etihad Airways will deploy its Airbus A380 between Abu Dhabi and Melbourne from 1 June next year. Operating on flights EY460 and EY461, the A380 flights will be one of the airline’s twice daily Abu Dhabi-Melbourne services replacing one of the three-class Boeing 777-300ER aircraft currently flying this route.
EY 460 will depart Abu Dhabi at 9.45pm and arrive in Melbourne the next day at 5.20pm. The return flight EY 461 departs Melbourne at 10.40pm and arrives in Abu Dhabi the next day at 6.45am.
Etihad Airways’ A380 features the luxurious The Residence by Etihad with its three-room suite in the sky and butler service. There are also nine First Apartments, 70 Business Studios, and 415 Economy Smart Seats. Guests on the A380 also enjoy full mobile and Wi-Fi service at a fee as well as USB and Power points access at every seat.
The A380 service to Abu Dhabi provides seamless connections to the A380 to London.
The new A380 increases the total number of two-way seats on the route by 26% to more than 11,500 seats per week.
James Hogan, Etihad Airways’ President and Chief Executive Officer shared that Melbourne is an important point on the airline’s global network and the route continues to generate very high seat load factors on a year round basis since it launched the route on 29 March 2009. He adds that after three months of operations, demand for a second daily service which started on 1 August 2015 has already exceeded his expectations.
Within Australia and to New Zealand, the airline codeshares on Virgin Australia and Air New Zealand flights from Melbourne to Adelaide, Auckland, Brisbane, Cairns, Canberra, Christchurch, Coffs Harbour, Darwin, Gold Coast, Hamilton Island, Hobart, Kalgoorlie, Launceston, Mildura, Newcastle, Perth, Queenstown, Sunshine Coast, Sydney and Wellington.
Etihad Airways currently flies direct from Abu Dhabi to four cities in Australia including Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Perth.
