AIR SEYCHELLES TAKES PART IN ETIHAD ALLIANCE MEETING IN ITALY
(Posted 22nd September 2015)
The Etihad Alliance, there is really no other way to describe what the national airline of Abu Dhabi has put into motion over the past few years, has the CEO’s of all the major partners assembled in Rome today for a summit of sorts.
The alliance summit is being chaired by Mr. James Hogan, President and Chief Executive Officer of Etihad Airways, and brings together the CEO’s of Alitalia, AirBerlin, Jet Airways, Air Serbia, Air Seychelles and Etihad Regional – formerly known as Darwin Airline – and Austria’s Nikki.
Etihad Airways holds minority stakes in Alitalia (49 per cent), AirBerlin (29.2 per cent), Jet Airways (24 per cent), Air Serbia (49 per cent), Air Seychelles (40 per cent) and Darwin Airline, which trades as Etihad Regional (33.3 per cent).
Today’s meeting follows the conclusion last week of a new style collective financing agreement, through which US Dollars 700 million was raised on the international financial markets for use by Etihad Airways, Etihad Airport Services, AirBerlin, Alitalia, Jet Airways, Air Serbia and Air Seychelles.
Said James Hogan ahead of the summit: ‘The airline industry is global, not local. Individually, we are small participants in the global market. But collectively, our partnership serves 330 destinations, flies almost 700 aircraft and carries over 100 million passengers each year, making us the world’s seventh largest grouping of airlines. We leverage the buying power, resources, relationships and influence of our participating airlines to achieve the most cost-effective and customer-friendly outcomes’.
While not yet at level par with the industry giants Star Alliance, SkyTeam and oneWorld has the Etihad concept nevertheless made great strides in recent years and the savings generated by the individual airlines through pooled maintenance, training, insurance and spare part sourcing as well as using one frequent flyer programme among them, have been described as major by any standards. Codeshared operations have widened the reach of the airlines under the Etihad partnership banner, increasing passenger numbers across the network.
It is thought to be just a matter of time before this new alliance will get its own global brand name under which the partners will then operate and equally only a matter of time before the new kid on the block will catch up in terms of numbers of passengers flown, destinations reached and aircraft operated to the top three in the market.
While the US legacy carriers have made it their business of late to lay into the main Gulf airlines, including Etihad, over alleged state subsidies have the three, Etihad, Emirates and Qatar Airways turned the tables on them and cited a range of benefits the American carriers have enjoyed in the past, levelling the score sheet, besides strenuously denying being beneficiaries of state subsidies.
