In late 2023, Air France-KLM and Etihad announced plans to expand their partnership. This included frequent flyer reciprocity, an expanded codeshare agreement, and Air France even launching flights to Abu Dhabi. Well, this is now at least being partly scaled back…
In this post:
Air France ending flights to Abu Dhabi as of October 2024
As flagged by AeroRoutes, Air France will soon be discontinuing its Paris (CDG) to Abu Dhabi (AUH) route, almost exactly a year after it launched. Specifically, the service has operated daily with the following schedule, and will be discontinued as of October 27, 2024:
AF638 Paris to Abu Dhabi departing 9:55PM arriving 7:35AM (+1 day)
AF639 Abu Dhabi to Paris departing 9:45AM arriving 2:15PM
Air France has used an Airbus A350-900 on the route, though had plans to fly a Boeing 777-300ER for this upcoming winter. KLM also flew to Abu Dhabi in the past, but no longer does.
The Paris to Abu Dhabi route continues to be served by Etihad Airways. The airline operates in the market once daily, and as of November 2024, Etihad plans to upgrade the route to an Airbus A380. As of now, there’s no indication that the partnership between Air France-KLM and Etihad will be ending.
My take on Air France cutting Abu Dhabi flights
I’m a bit surprised to see Air France abandoning Abu Dhabi after just a year, especially when this route was launched as part of a larger collaboration. For Air France, the benefit of this partnership was supposed to be the ability to get passengers to long haul destinations that the airline doesn’t directly serve. For example, passengers could fly Air France to Abu Dhabi, and then connect to places like Ho Chi Minh City, Sydney, etc.
So, what went wrong here? The way I see it, there are two most likely explanations.
One possible explanation is that this route was just performing really poorly, and Air France wasn’t seeing the traffic flows it had hoped through Abu Dhabi. Maybe passengers just weren’t booking these routings, so there was no point for Air France to keep the service around.
Another possible explanation is that maybe Air France is instead pursuing other opportunities to partner with a Gulf airline. Could we soon we Air France instead partner with Riyadh Air, and announce flights to Riyadh? Keep in mind that Riyadh Air has now announced extensive partnerships with both Delta and Virgin Atlantic. Air France-KLM is also partially owned by Delta, and the airlines have a close level of cooperation.
For a while, it seemed like more SkyTeam airlines might get a bit closer to Etihad, due to how industry dynamics were playing out. But it now seems that energy is instead going toward Riyadh Air. So it’s possible my read on the situation is wrong, but personally I’d be surprised if there wasn’t an imminent announcement about Air France adding Riyadh to its network.
Bottom line
Air France will be ending its Paris to Abu Dhabi route as of late October 2024, a year after the service was launched. Given that Air France and Etihad had plans for a larger partnership, it’s interesting to see how fast the airline threw in the towel on this service.
What do you make of Air France cutting Abu Dhabi flights?
Manila is back.
https://corporate.airfrance.com/en/news/winter-air-france-will-inaugurate-new-non-stop-service-between-paris-charles-de-gaulle-and
Not surprised. AF J is such a poor product nowadays who would fly it when they could fly on Ethihad J.
Millions of people, every day? What a strange comment.
Year*, same sentiment.
Air France wil restart for summer season 30 march exactly… but i m ok it s surprise for winter season especially for australia… very pity i used this af route since opening and it work good, flights was often full with connections
Ps: the route was in 350 since opening never in 787…
The timing likely played a part (not even close to big departure banks) but also I suspect that the decision for EY to start sending the A388 to CDG might have played a part too. If yield was already on the lower side the A388 being offered is a huge final nail in the coffin -- who is taking AF at a worse time when you could take the EY A388 at a time better suited for connections?
Airlines don't cancel flights that are performing at least average for their system so AF's AUH flights clearly were below average performers.
To figure out why, you have to look at the times that AF had for its AUH flights vs. those of EY; EY's times were optimized for their largest banks of flights while AF operated off of those peaks. AF and EY didn't have a joint venture so less than ideal connections...
Airlines don't cancel flights that are performing at least average for their system so AF's AUH flights clearly were below average performers.
To figure out why, you have to look at the times that AF had for its AUH flights vs. those of EY; EY's times were optimized for their largest banks of flights while AF operated off of those peaks. AF and EY didn't have a joint venture so less than ideal connections with lower value tickets being split between two carriers - exactly what you would expect to happen with partners to the Gulf carriers which dominate their markets.
Riyadh Air recognizes that they have to change the paradigm in order to build mass and are not only willing to subsidize new carrier service to RUH but also cooperate to penetrate markets via partnerships. While AF chose to pursue a partnership with EY, they may or may not follow DL and VS to RUH; CDG would seem like it has to be an early market for someone in the Riyadh Air "family" to fly but it will be quite some time before there are robust connecting banks at RUH which is what AF needed with EY to serve new cities in SE Asia and the S. Pacific.
While AF chose to pursue a partnership with EY, they may or may not follow DL and VS to RUH; CDG would seem like it has to be an early market for someone in the Riyadh Air "family" to fly but it will be quite some time before there are robust connecting banks at RUH which is what AF needed with EY to serve new cities in SE Asia and the S. Pacific.
...
While AF chose to pursue a partnership with EY, they may or may not follow DL and VS to RUH; CDG would seem like it has to be an early market for someone in the Riyadh Air "family" to fly but it will be quite some time before there are robust connecting banks at RUH which is what AF needed with EY to serve new cities in SE Asia and the S. Pacific.
Does not seem like there will be robust connecting banks with this strategy anytime soon. There are already 3 Gulf carriers and not all that much room for one more -- Riyadh Air is simply setting itself up to light money on fire like Etihad back in the day. If AF can't make AUH work RUH is even more unlikely
Supposed to be a quote block around that first paragraph. Lots of glitches commenting recently but oh well
we get your point...
The difference is that Etihad and Emirates are from the same geographically small country while Saudi Arabia is a much larger country both geographically and by GDP.
Saudi Arabia has missed out on the Gulf airline scene but has wealth as a country the same size as Turkey which can also be considered competitive with the Gulf Airlines.
Whether Riyadh Air will succeed financially is far from clear but...
we get your point...
The difference is that Etihad and Emirates are from the same geographically small country while Saudi Arabia is a much larger country both geographically and by GDP.
Saudi Arabia has missed out on the Gulf airline scene but has wealth as a country the same size as Turkey which can also be considered competitive with the Gulf Airlines.
Whether Riyadh Air will succeed financially is far from clear but the Middle East airlines have all been subsidized during early parts of their development; Saudi Arabia has the potential to do that and also create far more of a cooperative model with other airlines compared to every other Middle East airline that created an airline for itself and then left a few scraps for "partners" to fly.
I also think that this is more related to yield performance than anything to do with partnerships. Do they codeshare on the EY flight? If so, the A380 probably makes more economic sense for everyone involved and AF can retain a bit of revenue by selling connections on tickets from within/around France.
That's a huge loss for Etihad and Abu Dhabi airport. I guess we won't see any gushing, self promoting posts about this on LinkedIn about this partnership anymore....
In other SkyTeam-related news, the 101-year-old ČSA Czech Airlines will cease operations under its own brand on 1 October and leave the alliance — exactly a month after SAS’ joining. It’s sad that the airline had become so small (escaping the usually observant OMAAT’s attention) as to have only 2 aircraft, though its owner Smartwings is at least smart enough to fold the struggling brand into itself.
Apologies for the diversion, folks!
I don't know how Etihad Airways is even still in business. At some point, the Gulf states are going to have to shed some airlines. It won't be easy. But the market will prevail at some point.
Emirates and Etihad are reportedly profitable, and Qatar (who is far less transparent about their finances) and Kuwait are inextricably linked to the prosperity of ultra-wealthy states who'd never let them die. So what then do you expect "the market" to do?
For Air France, the benefit of this partnership was supposed to be the ability to get passengers to long haul destinations that the airline doesn’t directly serve. For example, passengers could fly Air France to Abu Dhabi, and then connect to places like Ho Chi Minh City, Sydney, etc.
??
AF258 CDG-SGN
Far more likely was EY connections to the Subcontinent rather tha SWA or SWP
AF can make more un=shared revenue flying pax from France *direct* to SIN, where they have an existing partnership with QF to major Australian capital cities.
From the Australian end, QF pax flying from Australia to France via SIN can claim benefits in their OW QF Frequent Flyer program on the direct SIN-CDG AF sector. The same QF benefits are available on AF CDG-HKG-CDG flights.
Perhaps AF's move to terminate this EY / AUH...
AF can make more un=shared revenue flying pax from France *direct* to SIN, where they have an existing partnership with QF to major Australian capital cities.
From the Australian end, QF pax flying from Australia to France via SIN can claim benefits in their OW QF Frequent Flyer program on the direct SIN-CDG AF sector. The same QF benefits are available on AF CDG-HKG-CDG flights.
Perhaps AF's move to terminate this EY / AUH connection is simply a rationalization of their global agreements - and one which maximizes AF revenue from passengers flying ex France to Australia ?
A DL/EY partnership and a JFK or ATL-AUH DL flight would be a wonderful replacement to this route
And it looks like they plan to restart Manila service in December.
It probably was just losing money. It may have been full, but pumping low yield connections through Abu Dhabi is not a recipe for profitability. Nothing to do with Riyadh or any potential partnership there.