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Sydney will become Etihad’s largest Australian port when the Gulf carrier ramps up services from the middle of next year.
The airline will increase flights between Sydney and its base in Abu Dhabi from daily to 10 per week starting in July 2025, and has signalled it intends to further increase to double daily services in coming years.
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This will give Sydney the highest seat capacity to the Middle East in the country, said Greg Botham, Sydney Airport’s group executive for aviation growth and group strategy.
“Etihad has a fantastic product and it’s great that more Sydneysiders will be able to experience it,” he said.
“Etihad’s continued investment in connecting Sydney to the Middle East and beyond is a strong vote of confidence in Sydney and NSW and we look forward to working with them to continue to grow their presence.”
Etihad currently operates seven services per week to Sydney and Melbourne, with an eighth Melbourne flight coming in March next year.
Amer Khan, Etihad’s regional general manager, said the Sydney increase would boost connectivity for passengers through Abu Dhabi.
“The increase provides our customers with additional flexibility and timings making it easier to visit our wonderful home city of Abu Dhabi, or Dubai or connect with our growing global network,” Khan said.
“For summer 2025 we have announced double-daily flights to key European cities including Rome, Barcelona, Paris and Milan conveniently timed to connect with our services from Asia Pacific.”
Sydney Airport is currently connected to the Middle East by three carriers: Etihad to Abu Dhabi, Emirates to Dubai, and Qatar Airways to Doha. The announcement by Etihad follows Turkish Airways last week announcing four weekly flights to Istanbul via Kuala Lumpur, commencing in December.
Figures released earlier this year showed 3.8 million international passengers through Sydney in the second quarter of calendar year 2024, representing a 94.3 per cent international recovery on Q2 of 2019.
“We saw strong international passenger volumes throughout Q2 with seat capacity growing across the markets of Japan, Korea, Thailand, and Vietnam versus the same period last year,” said Sydney Airport CEO Scott Charlton in July.
“This was underpinned by increased frequencies including Thai Airways adding a second daily service to Bangkok; Jetstar putting on a new, three-weekly service to Osaka; and VietJet Air adding a twice-weekly service to Hanoi.”
