Etihad Airways and Abu Dhabi Airport facing fewer operations by partner airlines

CAPA - Centre for Aviation, in a report entitled: 'Etihad's Abu Dhabi hub: more partners stop service, shifting Etihad's outlook to a boutique airline', stated (15-Sep-2017) Etihad Airways and Abu Dhabi International Airport are shifting from an expansive network involving multiple partners to a smaller footprint centred around Etihad. Equity partners airberlin, Air Serbia, NIKI and Virgin Australia have suspended Abu Dhabi services and Air Seychelles has reduced capacity. Air Seychelles, Alitalia and Jet Airways will be the only remaining partners in Abu Dhabi from Nov-2017. Jet Airways, Etihad's largest partner in Abu Dhabi, is reducing its presence as it favours a new partnership with Air France-KLM and Delta Air Lines and shifts operations from Abu Dhabi to Amsterdam and Paris. Jet Airways is critical to the remaining partner capacity at Abu Dhabi and to Etihad's India strategy. Etihad's partnership strategy has been an expensive failure that will take time and surely more costs to resolve. [more - CAPA Analysis]