(16 June 2012)
Etihad Airways achieved a new milestone on Monday 11 June when more than 65,500 flight bookings were made with the Abu Dhabi-based airline. The figure was the highest number of bookings ever made in a single day with Etihad Airways and exceeded the previous record, on Monday 9 January, by 13%.
In addition, passenger bookings for Thursday 14 June to Sunday 17 June are the highest of any four days previously experienced by Etihad Airways.
Advance premium cabin bookings for a single day are set to beat previous Etihad Airways records, with nearly 2,900 combined bookings already received for Diamond First and Pearl Business Class flights on Sunday 17 June.
The most popular overall destinations for travel over the 14 - 17 June period are Bangkok, Manila, London, Riyadh and Jeddah. Top premium travel destinations also include Paris, Sydney and Frankfurt.
James Hogan, Etihad Airways’ President and Chief Executive Officer, said, "Etihad Airways is experiencing exceptional demand for flights across our network for this weekend and into the summer. We are delighted to have broken our own records for flights bookings and will look to raise the bar further over the coming months."
"The Etihad Airways network and aircraft fleet has expanded greatly in the past 12 months and we are delighted to offer customers flights and world class services to short, medium and long haul destinations. This flight demand will continue to grow and we urge our customers to book their summer travel quickly to avoid disappointment," he added.
New records have also been set by the Etihad Airways new global media advertising campaign that was launched at the beginning of June.
The "Why" television commercial has now received more than 876,000 views on YouTube for the English version, and almost 100,000 views for the Arabic version of the video.
Overall, the Etihad Airways YouTube channel has now received more than 1.5 million views for all its video content.
Etihad Airways will operate 1,262 flights each week in the summer of 2012, compared to 1,106 flights in the summer of 2011, an increase of 14%.
The airline has 280,498 seats on its flights available each week compared to 235,818 seats per week last summer, an increase of 19%.
There is a 14% increase in the number of global destinations on the Etihad Airways flight network in the summer of 2012, with flights operating to 73 passenger destinations compared to 64 in 2011.
Since summer 2011 Etihad Airways has launched services to Shanghai, Nairobi, Basra, Male, Seychelles, Chengdu, Dusseldorf, and Tripoli. On 1 July it will begin flying to Lagos.