Next year Etihad will have more flights to Sydney and its offering in the middle of 2025. Between Sydney and Abu Dhabi, Etihad will increase the number of flights from one per day to ten per week. And in the future, Etihad plans to add more flights to two flights per day.
Compared to other Australian cities, Sydney will have the most seats available for flights to the Middle East.
This will give Sydney the highest seat capacity in 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.”
Between Abu Dhabi and Sydney and Abu Dhabi and Melbourne, Etihad is flying seven times a week. In March 2025, Etihad planning to add another flight between Abu Dhabi and Melbourne.
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.”
There are three airlines that fly between Sydney and the Middle East, Etihad, Emirates, and Qatar Airways.
Turkish Airlines recently announced that they will start flying to Istanbul four times a week starting in December. These flights will go through Kuala Lumpur. The number of international travelers traveling through Sydney airport.
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 the calendar year 2024, representing a 94.3 percent international recovery in 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.”
