Etihad to launch Kolkata-AUH starting February 2015
India's connections with the Gulf have always been pretty good, but Kolkata hasn't had it all that great in the past. In fact, Jet Airways had withdrawn four flights from CCU earlier this year, to free them up for international use following Etihad's acquisition of 24% stake in Jet Airways.
Some of that is about to change, with CCU clawing its way back into the India-Middle East map, with Etihad planning to launch a daily service from AUH to CCU, starting 15 February 2015. The route will be served by an A320 in a 2-class configuration, with 16 business class seats and 120 economy seats.
The proposed flight timings are:
EY256 AUH 1110 CCU 1650 A320
EY255 CCU 1830 AUH 2230 A320
Etihad already flies direct or in codeshare with Jet, to 10 cities in India: Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Kochi, Kozhikode, Mumbai, New Delhi and Trivandrum. I might also mention here, that this is new service to CCU is part of Etihad's slew of new routes in 2015, including Madrid in March, Entebbe in May, and Edinburgh, Hong Kong and Algiers in June.
CCU is quite poorly connected to the Middle East, though to be honest, there hasn't been enough reason for much traffic on this route, which is largely oriented towards working class and labourers from the South and West of India, and leisure travel mainly out of DEL and BOM. Currently, only EK serves CCU to the Middle East, with 2 flights a day.
This new service from Etihad will be positioned not for traffic into the ME, as much as for onward international connections out of AUH that acts as a hub for Etihad. Since that is Emirates' current strategy too, with their twice a day service on CCU-DXB, I'm guessing that if this new Etihad route is successful, we may see EK withdraw one of their DXB-CCU flights.
Some of that is about to change, with CCU clawing its way back into the India-Middle East map, with Etihad planning to launch a daily service from AUH to CCU, starting 15 February 2015. The route will be served by an A320 in a 2-class configuration, with 16 business class seats and 120 economy seats.
The proposed flight timings are:
EY256 AUH 1110 CCU 1650 A320
EY255 CCU 1830 AUH 2230 A320
Etihad already flies direct or in codeshare with Jet, to 10 cities in India: Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Kochi, Kozhikode, Mumbai, New Delhi and Trivandrum. I might also mention here, that this is new service to CCU is part of Etihad's slew of new routes in 2015, including Madrid in March, Entebbe in May, and Edinburgh, Hong Kong and Algiers in June.
CCU is quite poorly connected to the Middle East, though to be honest, there hasn't been enough reason for much traffic on this route, which is largely oriented towards working class and labourers from the South and West of India, and leisure travel mainly out of DEL and BOM. Currently, only EK serves CCU to the Middle East, with 2 flights a day.
This new service from Etihad will be positioned not for traffic into the ME, as much as for onward international connections out of AUH that acts as a hub for Etihad. Since that is Emirates' current strategy too, with their twice a day service on CCU-DXB, I'm guessing that if this new Etihad route is successful, we may see EK withdraw one of their DXB-CCU flights.
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