Abu Dhabi-based Etihad Airways said on Tuesday it had bought an Airbus A320 and leased two others, adding the first narrow-bodied aircraft to its fleet as it expands its regional flights.
The three A320s will be added to its fleet in September and October, while three more of the aircraft would be added in the first quarter of 2008, Etihad said in a statement, without giving further details.
Etihad bought one Airbus A320 aircraft from US-based KJ Aviation Services and leased two from Air Malta, a company spokesman said.
“Narrow-body aircraft are ideally suited to our growing Middle East and short-haul network and it will allow us to redeploy the wide body aircraft, currently in use on these routes, to our long haul destinations,” Etihad Airways chief executive James Hogan said in the statement.
“The addition of the 140 seater, single aisle aircraft will enable Etihad to increase the number of flights to its Gulf destinations and improves transfer times to its global network.”
Etihad’s fleet comprises 27 wide-body aircraft, which will increase to 39 following a recent aircraft order.
In June, the airline agreed to buy 12 new wide-body aircraft from Airbus for US$2.2 billion. The order comprises four A340-600s, five A330 passenger aircraft and three A330 freighters.
Etihad’s A320 will start flying from Abu Dhabi to Tehran next month. The other two aircraft are scheduled to operate on routes to Beirut, Dammam, Karachi, Muscat and Bahrain. They will also fly to Cairo, Doha, Kuwait, Amman, Damascus and Tehran.
In other news, Emirates airline is reportedly close to signing an order for eight of Boeing’s 747-8I passenger aircraft, according to Flight International, citing unidentified industry sources.
The airline is in talks to buy as many as 20 of the aircraft and may announce an order at an air show in Dubai in November, the magazine said.
A spokeswoman for Emirates could not immediately be reached for comment.
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