Etihad Airways announced today that they’ll be launching a second daily flight between Abu Dhabi and New York as of March 1, 2014. This seems like fairly short notice on which to launch a new longhaul frequency, but that could very well work in our favor (as I’ll explain below).
Continue reading: Etihad Adds Second Daily New York Flight As Of March 1, 2014
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
will this have a american code share just like their other flight given 9W will be involved?
@ AJ -- It's an Etihad flight number so it'll still be eligible for mileage accrual with American, though best I can tell they haven't put an American codeshare on it yet. That could change, though, as the flight was just loaded into the system today.
@ lucky--unfortunately, that's incorrect: flights to/from the US/Canada on Etihad are *not* eligible for mileage accrual unless booked under an AA codeshare. See the bullet point above the chart:
http://www.aa.com/i18n/AAdvantage/earnMiles/travel/airlines/etihad.jsp
man, makes you wish AA would allow transfers in middle east on award tickets to africa... hopefully this will change after the merger.
So can the Jet Airways operated flights be booked with AA miles (or just the Etihad operated flights)? Also, what are other options to book Jet Airways?
While this is good news for travellers, there are a couple of concerns - 1) the 9W planes now look very tired and are in need of a major refurbishment and 2) this will create a major logjam at immigration with EK 203, an A380 flight, arriving just 20 mins before the Etihad flight.
You don't need to have an account with Etihad Guest to check availability. It's all still readily available here:
https://www.etihad.com/en/plan-and-book/book-redemption-flights/
Why does 9W have so much extra metal that they can lease them to Etihad, Thai, Turkish anyway?
@ Charles -- They're struggling so much that they can't really afford to fly their own planes. 😀
[…] don't have the answer to your points, but 9W F doesn't look bad as well. See Lucky's blog post on the topic with […]
Lucky,
after the downgrade by the FAA. Is EY permitted to use 9W aircraft to fly their 2nd daily AUH-JFK or will alternate arrangements have to be made?
I recently flew the second Etihad/Jet Airways flight (in late March) on the 'Jet Airways operated by Etihad' flight. Overall, I would not recommend it but there are some positives:
1) the outbound timing is pretty good in that you leave at 12:30pm and arrive into Abu Dhabi at 6:30am. After a short nap, you have the rest of the day in Abu Dhabi so the timings are more convenient to combat jetlag
now onto the negatives - on the outbound, the plane was Jet Airways but the crew and PTV's were Etihad; neither of them were great and the plane was only 40% full (even though, service was bad and many things kept breaking -- such as seats and bathroom). The good thing is that this plane leaves out of Etihad's slot at JFK so easy to access the business class lounge.
The return flight was early in the morning and leaves out of T1 at AUH - which is the older, more congested terminal (vs Etihad only T3 which is nice and new). When we were called for boarding, we all went through additional screening and then were corralled into a tiny space that should fit only 100 people but we were over 300 (a full flight). This plane was completely Jet Airways, from the seats to the service to the crew. The only thing Etihad were the PTV's. And even though we took the return 2 months later, the food was the exact same food from AUH to JFK as we had 2 months earlier from JFK to AUH (and it wasnt good!)
The fares are cheaper on the 'jet airways operated by etihad' but you pay a cheap price and get a cheap service!
Ben--do you know what seats would be better for a couple traveling together in first on these Jet flights? Trying to figure out if the center seats have access to each other or if it would be better to get two windows on the side.