GOING GOING GOING GONE …
(Posted 19th December 2017)
After parts of Etihad’s former empire have come crashing down – Air Berlin in liquidation after pouring mega bucks into it, Alitalia up the proverbial s*** creek after equally getting mega money poured into that bottomless hole, Darwin Airline in Switzerland gone bust and other similar investments under clouds too – has reality clearly dawned at corporate headquarters. These and other decisions led to a loss of nearly 1.9 billion US Dollars last year, a figure which would have brought other airlines down were it not for the deep pockets of the owners.
Those who led the airline down that path are gone from their corporate suites but for some destinations is now the day of reckoning coming too it seems.
Non- or less than satisfactory financial performance of some routes appears to have led to those being cut to save some all important bucks as the once mighty airline suddenly feels the strain, immensely rich owners notwithstanding.
Entebbe appears to be among those destinations being axed from the summer flight schedule in 2018 but then did Etihad never really make the impact in Uganda they had planned for. Reputation elsewhere is simply not enough in the Ugandan market where flying daily counts more than anything else and with less than a handful of flights a week did Etihad clearly not make the cut.
Passengers already booked beyond the cut off date are now apparently being re-booked via Nairobi to join the Etihad flights to Abu Dhabi from there, much to the anger, frustration, disappointment and travel trouble of those affected, needless to say.
(Seen in public domain on Facebook)
Also facing the axe is Tehran, where flights are initially reduced to just two a week before halting them altogether on 24th of January next year. Flights to Dallas / Fort Worth and San Francisco have also fallen victim to the precarious financial situation of the airline due to less than hoped for load factors.
Well, a word of advice from yours truly for passengers flying from and to Entebbe … you CAN rely on Brussels Airlines which does fly daily to travel to your European destination of choice just as you can when flying with Qatar Airways, Emirates but also Ethiopian Airlines, all of which serve Entebbe not just daily but in the case of ET several times a day.
Meanwhile, come the 25th of March it will be a final wave when the last Etihad flight leaves Entebbe.
