A few days ago, I wrote about how Etihad Airways announced that it’s launching a new route between Abu Dhabi (AUH) and Charlotte (CLT). The flight will commence in May 2026, and will operate 4x weekly, with Boeing 787s. The backstory of how this route came to be is quite something, as flagged by @xJonNYC…
In this post:
Charlotte Airport caught off guard by Etihad route
Forbes has the backstory of how Etihad went about making the decision to launch flights to Charlotte. As we all know, the route announcement coincided with President Trump’s visit to the UAE, where Etihad also announced a Boeing aircraft order (though with few details, and it’s only described as a “commitment” for now).
Generally speaking, the process of an airline launching a long haul flight to a new airport is a drawn out process. It takes months, and sometimes there are even years of discussions and negotiations between airports and airlines, especially given the incentives that are often provided.
That wasn’t the case here, and Charlotte Airport executives were even caught off guard by the announcement. According to Forbes, the airport only found out about the route one day before it was announced:
President Trump’s visit to Abu Dhabi last week prompted Etihad Airways to reach out to Charlotte Douglas International Airport to say it wanted to served Charlotte.
The call to the airport was made Wednesday. It was the first time the airport heard of the airline’s interest. On Thursday, Trump visited Abu Dhabi. On Friday morning, Etihad announced that it intends to fly the Boeing 787 between its Abu Dhabi hub and Charlotte four times weekly starting May 4, 2026. Tickets went on sale Friday.
In an interview on Friday, Etihad’s Director of Network and Scheduling stated “it’s a good day to make the announcement,” and claimed the airline has “been looking at Charlotte for a few months.”
What a strange approach to adding a new route
This new route is a major development for Charlotte — it’s the airport’s first route to Asia and the Middle East, the airport’s longest nonstop flight, and also the airport’s only scheduled Boeing 787 flight. I’m not sure what’s stranger:
- That Etihad executives only started discussions with the airport a day before making the announcement
- That Charlotte Airport executives weren’t doing more to engage in conversations with Gulf carriers about launching flights to the airport
As you’d expect, “matchmaking” between airports and airlines is big business, and there are even conferences for these kinds of things (as Denver Airport executives can attest to). 😉 I’ve asked a few people directly familiar with international route planning about this, and all of them said this was strange, and that ordinarily there would be much more drawn out discussions than this.
So I’m not really sure what to make of this. I’m also not sure what the connection is between Trump and Charlotte. Was Charlotte just the next US airport that Etihad executives were targeting? If that was the case, you’d think that there would have been existing discussions, since that’s standard.
Frankly, this story just kind of makes the Etihad team seem a bit disorganized, or something, no? You’d think that maybe they could’ve done a bit more negotiating in their favor with a bit more time.
Bottom line
Etihad recently announced plans to launch Charlotte flights, coinciding with Trump’s visit to the UAE. While it’s not unusual to see some announcements connected to a high profile visit, what’s strange is that Etihad only made contact with Charlotte Airport for the first time one day before the announcement was made.
I don’t think there are many long haul routes that progress from the first discussion between the airport and the airline to being on sale within around 48 hours. It sure seems like some incentives from the airport or local community might have been left on the table here.
What do you make of the way Etihad is adding Charlotte flights?
What's most shocking is that Etihad has not hired this blog's participants to run it's strategic planning and marketing departments.
First mover advantage is a thing.
Obviously market demographics matter when making a route work. The big comparison I see people making is ATL. But ATL already sees service from QR, TK, and tons of one stop connections thanks to Delta's ATL hub.
I guess this is an interesting development in the story, but CLT growth is real. That alone lends some credibility to making it work.
Not shocked at all. I bet the CLT airport people had to google where Abu Dhabi is on a map. They don't offer much in the way of incentives and have shown very little interest in pursuing such service. Their talks fell apart with Turkish because they couldn't make AA move some narrow body times around to open up a customs gate.
But will there be award seats for sale. . . Let's be honest, that's all that matters.
For Pre-clearance (at Abu Dhabi) and connections to AA. Might be more desirable to land in CLT as an AA hub vs adding flights to IAD, which doesn't have much of an AA presence. Not sure where else on the East Coast can beat this. ATL is busy and skewed towards Delta. Not the best time for Newark. BWI, no. JFK is already busy.
It’s indeed not usual but has happened before. MAF was noticed only 48 hours before Delta announced 3x daily to Austin. Yes there could have been subsidy here too but sometimes airlines value other things (such as timing?) higher
I actually think it may work out well, given Charlotte has a sizable south asian community and theres no competing flights to the middle east so will be of convenience.
What is most surprising about this announcement is that Etihad is launching service to Atlanta in July 2025. Why announce service to another city, Charlotte, only 250 miles away just 9 months later?
I understand the American connection, but Qatar could not make Philadelphia work, so does EY think that Charlotte is realistic in the long term?
I wouldn't be surprised to see either ATL axed in favour of CLT, but the catchment...
What is most surprising about this announcement is that Etihad is launching service to Atlanta in July 2025. Why announce service to another city, Charlotte, only 250 miles away just 9 months later?
I understand the American connection, but Qatar could not make Philadelphia work, so does EY think that Charlotte is realistic in the long term?
I wouldn't be surprised to see either ATL axed in favour of CLT, but the catchment just isn't there for two flights in 2026, regardless of how booming the Southeast is just now.
They would probably axe Charlotte over Atlanta. Atlanta is bigger and has more demand.
It wasn't that QR couldn't make PHL work, it was that they could have AA serve PHL-DOH traffic and 2 QR aircraft could then be deployed elsewhere in the network.
Adding onto @Nolan, American had a flight to Doha out of JFK. However, that flight was doing quite poorly because most people preferred to fly with Qatar on that route (the exception were AA elites who could get upgrades, and that route on AA was amazing for upgrades). One reason AA was doing poorly was because QR had 2 other daily flights on that route. By moving that flight to PHL and taking over Qatar's...
Adding onto @Nolan, American had a flight to Doha out of JFK. However, that flight was doing quite poorly because most people preferred to fly with Qatar on that route (the exception were AA elites who could get upgrades, and that route on AA was amazing for upgrades). One reason AA was doing poorly was because QR had 2 other daily flights on that route. By moving that flight to PHL and taking over Qatar's PHL flight, AA was the only operator on that route which meant better loads for them (because people cannot book a QR flight on that route for a similar price, meaning they are stuck with AA or a connection). Meanwhile, QR replaced AA's JFK frequency, so bascially the aircraft freed up from PHL essentially just switched over to JFK. So that shuffle worked out better for American. Meanwhile, PHL residents no longer have a nonstop flight on Qatar Airways, so I'd consider that a negative for them. But all things considered that actually seems to have been a very smart solution in my opinion.
Still wonder when Qatar is going to “retaliate” and add a flight here. But does this mean EY is getting no local subsidies? Somewhat surprising.
Whether EY launches the route and flies it by this time next year, it doesn’t need subsidies from CLT/North Carolina as the airline is basically a state enterprise/pet for the UAE/Abu Dhabi’s ruling family. And nowadays what they want to do is to publicly kiss up to Trump/Trumpublicans so as to get their way on things even more than they already do.
That strategy worked for the Qataris, so it's well worth a shot.
Not sure why this is so confusing. They partner with American. They wanted to announce a route to support "America". Here's the most viable one. Will prob be axed after a while. Remember - the airline is an instrument of the state in the Middle East. It's just politics.
@ Joe -- What's confusing is that it wasn't a longer negotiation process, since the airline could've likely gotten some significant incentives. It's like viewing a house that's for sale and saying "I want it, will you take asking?" It's not smart business (well, unless it's a market where houses sell for over asking).
Ben- I don’t think this was a business decision, but rather a political one. So, smart business kinda goes out the window here.
Perhaps Constellis/Blackwater — affiliated with Erik Prince — will be sending a lot of its mercenaries/employees on the EY flights from Charlotte to Abu Dhabi and then perhaps elsewhere in the Middle East and/or Africa. The UAE really loves Trumpublicans and American mercenaries (and even assassins).
you need help
The UAE is what the UAE is. The ruling family of Abu Dhabi and of the federation of the UAE have a multi-decades long preference for Republicans and hostility to Democrats. They also have a history of doing business with NC-based ops for Erik Prince/Blackwater/Constellis mercenaries and are currently setting to run up ties more. Which of these facts do you dispute and on what basis do you dispute these facts?
A). the fact that you are terminally full of crap and always post abject overwrought nonsense like this
and
B). The *ridiculous* notion that your delusional ravings on this would have anything whatsoever with this route being started/run/succeeding etc.
You need help.
Aren't you the guy who posts nothing about standing w/ Ukraine on his X page (not that I disagree with that) but then simps for Israel and then considers anything even so slightly pro-Palestinian to be equated with Hamas?
Another one of those flash in the pan routes that'll be removed from schedule in a year or less.
Right - more phoney bullshit. What are the odds it never happens come next year.
That would mean it never launches. Which is a possibility if say the route to ATL bites the dust in its stead.