ABU DHABI/JAKARTA: Etihad Airways, the national airline of the United Arab Emirates, and Garuda Indonesia, the national flag carrier of the Republic of Indonesia, are strengthening their partnership between Abu Dhabi and Jakarta and beyond their respective hubs.
The scope of the partners’ codeshare agreement, first signed in 2012, will be significantly expanded to nearly double the number of combined destinations Etihad and Garuda are able to offer beyond the Abu Dhabi and Jakarta hubs, with 42 destinations across the Indonesian archipelago, South East Asia, Middle East, US and Europe now covered by the agreement.
In addition, the partners offer reciprocal miles accrual and redemption opportunities to members of Etihad Guest and GarudaMiles across both airline’s networks, and will further engage both member bases through joint marketing activities.
The carriers intend to explore further areas of collaboration in the light of current market opportunities and company requirements, including Cargo, Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul, and Pilot/Crew Training Services. The partners signed an MOU covering these areas of discussion on the sidelines of the B20 Summit in Bali, Indonesia on 12 November, attended by HE Dr Thani bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi, Minister of State for Foreign Trade, HE Ahmed bin Ali Al Sayegh, Minister of State, and H.E. Abdullah Salem Al Dhaheri, Ambassador of the United Arab Emirates to the Republic of Indonesia.
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 exploring comprehensive and pragmatic ways in which the two carriers can increase collaboration, enhance benefits and customer experience for our most frequent travellers and further extend the reach of our joint networks beyond our hubs.
“This reflects Etihad’s continued drive for commercial sustainability and is part of our broader partnership strategy, which enables Etihad guests to access nearly 400 cities worldwide, in addition to Etihad’s operating network.”
Irfan Setiaputra, President & CEO of Garuda Indonesia, said: “As a national flag carrier, it is our main focus to connect Indonesia with the world, providing a coherent relation to a wide range of diversity of nature and cultural richness throughout the archipelago. With both airlines’ extensive networks worldwide and nationally, we believe that this extended partnership will not only give added value to Garuda Indonesia’s passengers to access popular destinations across the globe, especially to the United States, Turkey and Abu Dhabi, but will also offer a range of domestic destinations, especially in the area of East Indonesia for Etihad’s passengers.
“Due to Indonesia being an archipelago comprising more than 17,000 islands, air travel is necessary for the mobility of both people and goods. This can lead to significant opportunities for the aviation ecosystem to recover stronger after the pandemic. With more than 10 years of partnership between both airlines, we look forward to exploring the possibility to intensify the long existing partnership with Etihad not only in the network expansion strategy, but also in other promising business perspective.”.
