EY frequency increases to many European cities

[Melburnian1]

EY is increasing frequencies to many European cities to/from Abu Dhabi to double daily from the northern summer 2025:

https://www.etihad.com/en/news/etihad-airways-serves-up-double-daily-delight-for-summer-2025

I don't quite agree with the comment about early morning arrivals being good for tourists because of early check-ins: heaps of hotels either decline or are not in a position to offer a gratis early check in, though travellers can dump their luggage at the hotel and go on a walking tour.

This will make EY more competitive with SQ, QR and behemoth EK, especially since Sydney flights are increasing from daily to 10x week.

Melbourne stays at double daily.

Notably, EY is not upgauging any Australian flights to an A380. Even if it wanted to during say our winter, it wouldn't have the aircraft to do so.

 

[Saab34]

I see they are also tweaking the Melbourne schedule from November to be more consistent with departure time. No more aircraft sitting on the ground for 15 hours, in late arvo and out early evening. Might cost them some corporate traffic however who want the 5/6am arrival back in Melbourne.

Essentially you connect to the morning 2am bank in AUH to arrive Euro in the morning. Will mean one can now connect to the early AM A380 departures.

 

[AIRwin]

Notably, EY is not upgauging any Australian flights to an A380. Even if it wanted to during say our winter, it wouldn't have the aircraft to do so.

A380 being deployed to SIN in February 2025:

https://www.etihad.com/en/news/etihad-boosts-network-across-asia-iconic-a380-heads-east-to-singapore-and-thailand-network-goes-tridaily

 

[Melburnian1]

I see they are also tweaking the Melbourne schedule from November to be more consistent with departure time. No more aircraft sitting on the ground for 15 hours, in late arvo and out early evening. Might cost them some corporate traffic however who want the 5/6am arrival back in Melbourne.

EY461 arrives MEL at 1655 during AEDT, and departs back to AUH at 1815 hour as EY462.

If this is the same plane, it's extremely tight, unrealistically so.

 

[Saab34]

EY461 arrives MEL at 1655 during AEDT, and departs back to AUH at 1815 hour as EY462.

If this is the same plane, it's extremely tight, unrealistically so.

Same plane.
OTP might start to slip as the aircraft isn’t sitting around. It needs to leave on time as it connects to the 2am bank from AUH, bit of a wait until the next 8/9am bank if it’s running late.