Etihad’s focus on smaller aircraft puts fleet plans in limbo

Etihad Airways (EY, Abu Dhabi Int’l) will focus on rebuilding its operations as a medium-size carrier with smaller twin-aisle B787s once COVID-19 eases, putting its previous fleet plans on hold. Speaking on Bloomberg Television on February 10, Chief Executive Officer Tony Douglas said the carrier had not yet set a delivery date for Boeing’s coming B777X. He was also uncertain if the airline’s existing ten A380-800s would ever return to service, or how many A350-1000s would be needed. As things stand, the carrier has five A350-1000s, with another fifteen on order, the ch-aviation fleets advanced module shows. Douglas said Etihad was focusing on its smaller B787s Dreamliner. “The point really is to concentrate on the backbone, and the backbone for us is the B787,” he said. Etihad has a fleet of thirty B787-9s and nine B787-10s, with eleven more B787-9s and 17 more B787-10s on order, after already trimming its order by twenty aircraft in 2019. Alongside the B787s, it was currently looking to deploy no more than twelve A350-1000s, Douglas said. The company has an order for fifteen of the type, down from 62 originally, of which five have been delivered and are standing idle. Of Etihad’s ten A380-800s, Douglas said he was “not sure we’ll ever bring them back,” with the double-deckers having a role only on the busiest routes to cities such as London Heathrow and New York JFK even in the event of a strong rebound. He didn’t go into specifics on longer-term plans for the order book. He said he didn’t expect air travel to return to pre-pandemic levels until 2023, adding he did not want to create “false certainty” in terms of a rebound. He said Etihad has six remaining orders for B777-9s after trimming down its commitment from 25. After numerous delays, the model is now slated to debut in 2023, but Douglas could not commit to a fixed date for the deliveries. Last week, Emirates (EK, Dubai Int’l) President Tim Clark said the B777X was unlikely to be delivered “before the first quarter of 2024”. Etihad has made some of the deepest fleet cuts in the industry as it tries to rein in losses and refocus its network on the needs of Abu Dhabi, the airline’s owner. According to the ch-aviation fleets advanced module, it has on its books; nineteen A320-200s, ten A321-200s, six A330-200s, three A330-300s, five A350-1000s, ten A380-800s, with twenty-six A321-200Ns, and fifteen A350-1000s on order. Its Boeing fleet consists of five B777-200Fs, nineteen B777-300(ER)s, nine B787-10s, thirty B787-9s, with seventeen B777-9s, twenty-one B787-10s and eleven B787-9s due for delivery.