Etihad Airways will today launch its first service to Perth, part of an ambitious growth plan in Australia that one analyst says could bring it growth of 75 per cent in the country over three years.
And in a further sign of its growing interest in the Australian market, Etihad says it will operate its daily flights to Brisbane directly, instead of stopping in Singapore. The route will be operated by a Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner — featuring Etihad's new premium class option.
“With the up-gauges from A340s to 777s, new Perth service and soon deployment of A380s, Etihad is looking at growth over three years of approximately 75 per cent in Australia,” said Will Horton, a senior analyst Sydney-based Centre for Aviation (Capa). “Planned growth had been consistent across cabins, but with the 787 and A380, there will be a slight increase in premium seat share.”
In 2013, Etihad was the 12th largest international carrier in Australia with a 2.1 per cent of passengers, compared to the 9.3 per cent of Emirates, the second-largest after Qantas. But Mr Horton reckons that “favourable market conditions could see Etihad become the 10th-largest carrier in the near future”.
In addition to Perth, Etihad also flies daily to Melbourne and Sydney. It has a First and Business Class Lounge at Sydney International Airport and will open another at Melbourne International Airport in the first half of 2015.
UAE carriers have deep-rooted ties with Australian airlines. Etihad owns a 21.2 per cent stake in Virgin Australia, the second-biggest airline in the country, and Emirates partnered with Qantas, its biggest airline, a year ago.
Emirates operates three daily flights between Perth and Dubai.
The Emirates-Qantas tie-up took a sizeable chunk of business away from Singapore. The development also meant an end to the Qantas partnership with British Airways, a service which had been affectionately known as the Kangaroo route from Australia to London via Singapore.
“Gulf hubs can offer more one-stop options between Australia and Europe than traditional Asian hubs can,” said Mr Horton.
“Singapore and Hong Kong may be cheaper than Australia, but they are becoming expensive cities. Gulf carriers are full service but without a legacy history that adds cost,” he added.
Singapore has not taken the increasing encroachment of deep-pocketed Arabian Gulf airlines lying down. The city-state’s fair trade watchdog recently started investigating Etihad’s purchase of a 24 per cent stake in India’s Jet Airways to see if it would affect competition with Singapore Airlines, as both Etihad and Jet offer direct flights to Singapore.
Also today, Etihad is launching a service to Rome. Etihad has been in the news in Italy, as it is awaiting regulatory approval to purchase a 49 per cent stake in the country’s financially ailing flagship carrier Alitalia.
According to a sampling of rates offered on Etihad’s website yesterday, the cheapest return fare for Rome was Dh3,425, taxes included, and for Perth was Dh6,435, taxes included.
selgazzar@thenational.ae
Follow us on Twitter @Ind_Insights
The biog
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Favourite country to visit: Italy
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Attacks on Egypt’s long rooted Copts
Egypt’s Copts belong to one of the world’s oldest Christian communities, with Mark the Evangelist credited with founding their church around 300 AD. Orthodox Christians account for the overwhelming majority of Christians in Egypt, with the rest mainly made up of Greek Orthodox, Catholics and Anglicans.
The community accounts for some 10 per cent of Egypt’s 100 million people, with the largest concentrations of Christians found in Cairo, Alexandria and the provinces of Minya and Assiut south of Cairo.
Egypt’s Christians have had a somewhat turbulent history in the Muslim majority Arab nation, with the community occasionally suffering outright persecution but generally living in peace with their Muslim compatriots. But radical Muslims who have first emerged in the 1970s have whipped up anti-Christian sentiments, something that has, in turn, led to an upsurge in attacks against their places of worship, church-linked facilities as well as their businesses and homes.
More recently, ISIS has vowed to go after the Christians, claiming responsibility for a series of attacks against churches packed with worshippers starting December 2016.
The discrimination many Christians complain about and the shift towards religious conservatism by many Egyptian Muslims over the last 50 years have forced hundreds of thousands of Christians to migrate, starting new lives in growing communities in places as far afield as Australia, Canada and the United States.
Here is a look at major attacks against Egypt's Coptic Christians in recent years:
November 2: Masked gunmen riding pickup trucks opened fire on three buses carrying pilgrims to the remote desert monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor south of Cairo, killing 7 and wounding about 20. IS claimed responsibility for the attack.
May 26, 2017: Masked militants riding in three all-terrain cars open fire on a bus carrying pilgrims on their way to the Monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor, killing 29 and wounding 22. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack.
April 2017: Twin attacks by suicide bombers hit churches in the coastal city of Alexandria and the Nile Delta city of Tanta. At least 43 people are killed and scores of worshippers injured in the Palm Sunday attack, which narrowly missed a ceremony presided over by Pope Tawadros II, spiritual leader of Egypt Orthodox Copts, in Alexandria's St. Mark's Cathedral. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attacks.
February 2017: Hundreds of Egyptian Christians flee their homes in the northern part of the Sinai Peninsula, fearing attacks by ISIS. The group's North Sinai affiliate had killed at least seven Coptic Christians in the restive peninsula in less than a month.
December 2016: A bombing at a chapel adjacent to Egypt's main Coptic Christian cathedral in Cairo kills 30 people and wounds dozens during Sunday Mass in one of the deadliest attacks carried out against the religious minority in recent memory. ISIS claimed responsibility.
July 2016: Pope Tawadros II says that since 2013 there were 37 sectarian attacks on Christians in Egypt, nearly one incident a month. A Muslim mob stabs to death a 27-year-old Coptic Christian man, Fam Khalaf, in the central city of Minya over a personal feud.
May 2016: A Muslim mob ransacks and torches seven Christian homes in Minya after rumours spread that a Christian man had an affair with a Muslim woman. The elderly mother of the Christian man was stripped naked and dragged through a street by the mob.
New Year's Eve 2011: A bomb explodes in a Coptic Christian church in Alexandria as worshippers leave after a midnight mass, killing more than 20 people.
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