Etihad expands routes
Etihad is rolling out a major route push in 2026 — the airline added five new China routes and is launching 13 new routes overall as Abu Dhabi expands its hub strategy. (aviationa2z.com) (nomadlawyer.org)
Etihad Airways is widening its 2026 map again, adding five mainland China routes and pushing its latest expansion deeper into Asia. (etihad.com) The airline said on April 13 it will fly from Abu Dhabi to Shanghai Pudong, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Hangzhou and Shenzhen, adding 28 weekly flights. That lifts Etihad’s mainland China schedule to 35 weekly flights across six cities, including its existing daily Beijing Daxing service. (etihad.com) Etihad said every China flight in the expansion will use Boeing 787-9 aircraft with 28 business-class seats and 262 economy seats. The carrier tied the move to trade, tourism and cargo flows between the United Arab Emirates and China. (etihad.com) The China push lands after Etihad spent the past year stacking up new destinations from Abu Dhabi as it tries to pull more point-to-point traffic into the emirate. In July 2025, Chief Executive Officer Antonoaldo Neves said the airline had announced or launched 27 new routes in a single year. (etihad.com) That 2025 wave included Almaty, Baku, Bucharest, Medina, Tbilisi, Tashkent and Yerevan, with most of those services scheduled to begin in March 2026. Etihad also added seasonal summer 2026 routes to Krakow and Salalah. (etihad.com 1) (etihad.com 2) North America is part of the same buildout. Etihad’s Charlotte route starts May 4, 2026, with four weekly Boeing 787 flights, and Calgary joins the network on November 3, 2026, as the first nonstop link between the Middle East and Western Canada. (etihad.com 1) (etihad.com 2) Etihad’s own destination page now shows new 2026 additions including Charlotte, Krakow, Salalah, Bucharest, Tashkent, Luxembourg, Palma de Mallorca, Zanzibar, Damascus, Calgary and Kabul. The airline says its network now covers more than 100 destinations across more than 40 countries. (etihad.com) China is getting special attention because Etihad and China Eastern turned their joint venture on in April 2025 after China Eastern’s first Shanghai-Abu Dhabi flight arrived on April 28, 2025. The two airlines also linked their loyalty programs starting June 1, 2025. (etihad.com) With the five new China routes, Abu Dhabi gets a denser link into one of Etihad’s biggest growth markets just as the airline keeps filling out its 2026 schedule. The pattern is consistent across the announcements: more nonstop routes, more connecting traffic, and more pressure on rival Gulf hubs to match the pace. (etihad.com 1) (etihad.com 2)
