Etihad Airways to add nonstop flight to San Francisco

Etihad Airways has recently announced to add nonstop, daily service between San Francisco and Abu Dhabi. The service on this route will commence from November 18, 2014.

San Francisco will be the sixth US destination for the airline. The flights on this route will be operated using the aircraft of Jet Airways, Indian partner of Etihad.  The airline will be using Boeing 777-300 ER aircraft, which has three class configurations. There will be 308 economy class, 30 business class, and 8 first class seats for passengers to travel.

Etihad Airways currently flies to four US destinations including Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, and Washington. The fifth US destination will be Dallas, which will be added on December 3, 2014.

James Hogan, CEO of Etihad Airways, said that the United States of America has been the main center of the airline’s network growth this year. We have launched services to Los Angeles and will be starting flights to Dallas this December. The addition of San Francisco to our route has provided us our first direct connection to Northern California. Though we have launched this service using our partner, Jet Airways aircraft, the route will be operated by Etihad and its crew.

Ed Lee, Mayor of San Francisco, said that this new route will help travelers to connect to Africa and India. This will help increase business from these popular countries.

India is playing a major role on this Abu Dhabi and San Francisco flight through the leased aircraft of Jet Airways. Etihad will connect Delhi and San Francisco via Abu Dhabi. This will enable Indians to reach to San Francisco, which has the second largest Indian community in the US. The airline reckons that San Francisco will be one of most essential destinations from Delhi.