Etihad Airways, the national airline of the United Arab Emirates, will increase its Abu Dhabi-Kathmandu services from four to seven flights per week from January 2010. Etihad’s flights to Kathmandu, which were launched in December 2008, have proved extremely popular with travellers, providing high volumes of traffic into Abu Dhabi and the Middle East, as well as transit traffic to destinations including London and Frankfurt in Western Europe, and New York and Chicago in North America.

The success of the route is evident in average load factors of between 80 and 90 per cent on both in- and outbound flights. This is attributable to growth in corporate travel and also a positive trend in inbound tourism to Nepal, and the additional flights were introduced to satisfy these customers’ demands for daily frequencies, specifically.

Joost den Hartog, Etihad Airways’ regional general manager for North Asia and the Indian Subcontinent, said: “In addition to the strong demand for flights from Nepalese nationals who work in Abu Dhabi and further afield, we have seen a strengthening in corporate and leisure traffic, which is important to the economic development of Nepal. Etihad is pleased to support this growth with an increase in its services.”