Etihad, Garuda Expand Codeshare Partnership

DALLAS - UAE carrier Etihad Airways (EY) and Garuda Indonesia (GA) jointly announced today that they would expand their codeshare agreement and strengthen their partnership to boost connecting traffic between their hubs; Abu Dhabi (AUH) and Jakarta (CGK), respectively.

This event took place on November 12 at the B20 World Summit in Bali, Indonesia, an international meeting between worldwide businesses to analyze the market and explore new cooperation possibilities between companies.

Antonoaldo Neves, Group CEO of Etihad Airways, said, “This expansion will serve as a platform for what we envision will be a deep ongoing partnership between our two airlines. We look forward to enhancing benefits and customer experience for our most frequent travelers and further extending the reach of our joint networks beyond our hubs."

The codeshare agreement between EY and GA was first signed in 2012, and thanks to this expansion, customers will benefit from a doubled amount of new destinations offered by both airlines from the UAE and Indonesia to the rest of the world, adding up to a new total of 42.

The most common aircraft in Etihad, the Boeing 787-9, departs towards Abu Dhabi. Photo: Tony Bordelais/Airways

Etihad, Potentially Approaching SkyTeam

We already talked about a possible future addition of Emirates (EK) to Star Alliance, after their giant codeshare with both United (UA) and Air Canada (AC), not a long time ago.

After this expansion of the partnership with GA, doubling the possibilities for customers, maybe it is time to think about a potential adhesion of the second largest airline in the UAE to SkyTeam.

Etihad, while maintaining relations with big no-SkyTeam airlines such as Lufthansa (LH) or All Nippon Airways (NH), has been always remaining very close to SkyTeam giants such as Air France (AF), KLM (KL), Korean Air (KE), and Saudia (SV), among many others.

The number of shared destinations between EY and all SkyTeam members adds up to an incredible total of 164 cities, where 73 only represent the enormous partnership with ITA Airways (AZ); Etihad's gate to Europe.

The joint of EY with SkyTeam would, of course, facilitate all the processes between these airlines and offer the UAE airline even more possibilities of expansion to all the world's continents, while airlines such as AF or KL would benefit from an even gibber partnership with one of the world's biggest connection centers between Europe and Asia-Pacific.

Featured image: Announcement ceremony at the Bali B20 Congress: Etihad Airways