Etihad Airways official ‘hopeful’ over UK travel announcement

The UK Government is expected to announce a fresh list of countries to add to its ‘green list’ of destinations, from where arrivals into England will not require to quarantine.

Whether the UAE will be given the green light, a cautious amber, or remain on the red list remains a mystery, but Martin Drew, Etihad Airways’ SVP global sales & cargo, told Arabian Business he is “hoping” that the UAE will be given the all-clear to resume.

Comments made by the UK’s transport secretary, Grant Shapps, last month stalled hopes that the UAE might shift down Britain’s travel traffic light system anytime soon. Schapps indicated to reporters that the UAE will remain on the UK’s red list for air travel indefinitely as a result of the country’s position as a global transit hub.

While London Heathrow airport boss John Holland-Kaye previously failed to mention the UAE on a potential ‘green list’ of destinations being announced, listing instead the US, Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand, Israel and Iceland, plus some Caribbean destinations.

But Drew remained optimistic. He said: “We’re all hoping that the UAE is on the green list. Recently the UK was added to the Abu Dhabi ‘green list’ which meant people arriving from the UK didn’t have to quarantine in Abu Dhabi. Of course, we’re hoping the UK is going to reciprocate because obviously it’s a huge market for us.”

The UK-UAE air route was the world’s busiest in 2019. In the first half of November 2020, when the UAE was briefly added to Britain’s list of quarantine-free countries, flight bookings from the UK to Dubai rose to over 50 percent of the levels in the equivalent period in 2019, according to ForwardKeys data. And Skyscanner reported that the UK was the fourth most-searched for destination in the UAE in February-March, behind India, Philippines and Pakistan.

Drew revealed that Etihad was still operating three flights daily to London’s Heathrow Airport, although this was primarily driven by cargo demand, which is up overall globally between 50-60 percent of pre-pandemic levels to around 9,000 tonnes-a-week.

Martin Drew, senior vice president Global Sales & Cargo, Etihad Aviation Group

He said: “Despite the fact that with the UAE being on the UK red list we’re unable to carry passengers directly to the UK, that said we have maintained our three services a day into London Heathrow. And we’re able to uplift passengers from the UK, but again cargo has primarily been the reason why we’ve been able to maintain those flights.”

He said that the carrier is currently serving 64 destinations and averaging around 40,000 passengers-a-week. “We’re seeing that continuing to grow week-on-week although there are still challenges and whilst I think there is a light at the end of the tunnel, it’s maybe going to take longer than people were hoping, in terms of the return of any meaningful passenger demand,” he said.

Hopes of a revival have also been hit by the crippling wave of coronavirus cases sweeping across India. The country’s deaths rose by a record 3,780 during the last 24 hours, a day after India became the world’s second, after the United States, to cross the grim milestone of 20 million infections. Daily infections rose by 382,315 on Wednesday, health ministry data showed.

Etihad operates 31 passenger flights-per-week from India, which includes cargo, as well as 12 cargo-dedicated aircraft.

Drew said: “With everything that we see happening in India at the moment, I think that it’s probably going to take some time for them to get control of what’s going on there. It’s just awful to see how bad things are, but hopefully they’ll be able to get to grips with it as soon as possible because it’s such a strategically important market for us.”

While international flights to Pakistan are currently reduced to just 20 percent through to May 20.

“We hope it doesn’t go longer than that but we’ll have to wait and see,” said Drew.