Etihad's global network plans fuelled by Indian passengers

About 75 per cent of Indian passengers who flew Etihad Airways last year travelled to destinations beyond Abu Dhabi.

This fact was highlighted by private airport operators while opposing the demand to enhance seat capacity on India-Abu Dhabi sector.

The civil aviation ministry increased the weekly seat capacity on the route from around 13,000 to 50,000, brushing aside opposition from Delhi and Mumbai airports and airlines, including Air India.

Airports had argued that allowing the increase would impact their potential as aviation hubs.

The Association of Private Airport Operators had pointed out to the government that 25.7 per cent of Etihad Airways passengers between India and Abu Dhabi could be categorised as origin-destination traffic, which means Abu Dhabi was the destination.

The rest, 74.3 per cent, flew onward to other destinations in Europe, the US and other parts of world.

Etihad relies far more than Emirates on onward traffic. In the case of Emirates, 45 per cent of its passengers from India can be categorised as origin-destination traffic and the rest as onward traffic.

According to APAO, between March 2012 and February 2013, Etihad flew 680,000 passengers to and from nine cities in India, with an average load factor of 80 percent.

Of which, 175,000 passengers were origin-destination travellers and the rest flew onward on Etihad's network.

Among the airports, Kozhikode in Kerala had the least number of passengers going onward (42.5 per cent), where as 83-88 per cent of passengers from Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru and Hyderabad flew onward beyond Abu Dhabi.

"Indian airports are national assets and so are the traffic rights. So, giving away traffic rights to countries such as the UAE (United Arab Emirates) will have an adverse impact on Indian airports, Indian carriers and the nation as a whole," APAO wrote to the civil aviation ministry.

Etihad did not respond to a query seeking comments.

A National Council of Applied Economic Research report on Emirates Airlines shows that in 2011-12, 47-68 per cent of all Indian passengers travelled beyond Dubai.

Among the airports, Mumbai and Thiruvanthapuram had the least number going beyond (47 per cent), whereas 66-68 percent of passengers from Ahmedabad, Kolkata and Hyderabad flew beyond Dubai.

The report further said only18 percent of Emirates' onward traffic flew to destinations served by Indian airlines and that majority of its onward destinations had no direct flights from India.

NCAER said thus Emirates sixth freedom traffic (onward traffic) posed little competition to Indian carriers.

Delhi and Mumbai airports' fears unfounded, say Jet Airways sources The Jet-Etihad alliance will benefit passengers from metros as well as tier-II cities who will be able to fly direct to various points in West Asia, North Africa and Europe.

"We will launch direct flights from Mumbai and Delhi," a Jet official said adding both the airports would benefit from the alliance.

The airline plans to deploy wide-body airbus A330s and Boeing 777s from metros and use Boeing 737s from smaller cities.

Currently about 28 million passengers travel west-bound from India (Europe, the US, Africa) and the traffic has been growing 11-13 per cent.

The west-bound traffic is expected to grow to 40 million over the next few years.

"Currently, the share of Indian carriers in that market is less than 20 per cent.

"We are developing the gateway in Abu Dhabi so that we are able to connect multiple points in India and extend our network to Europe and Africa", the Jet official said.

The additional 37,000 weekly seats to Abu Dhabi adds up to 3.2 million seats a year and still would be less than 10 per cent of projected passenger growth on west-bound routes.

"We are not closing the door on any one's growth," the official added.