Etihad Airways expands codeshare with Russia’s S7 Airlines

Agreement will allow Etihad to place its EY code on S7 Airlines’s domestic flights to Chelyabinsk, Krasnoyarsk, Novosibirsk, Novy Urengoy, Omsk, Perm, Rostov-on-Don and Sochi.

S7 Airlines will place its code on a number of Etihad flights from Abu Dhabi. Maxim Zmeyev / Reuters

Etihad Airways has expanded its codeshare agreement with Russia’s S7 Airlines to an additional eight cities from Moscow.

The agreement, which will be effective from January 16, will allow Etihad to place its EY code on S7 Airlines’s domestic flights to Chelyabinsk, Krasnoyarsk, Novosibirsk, Novy Urengoy, Omsk, Perm, Rostov-on-Don and Sochi.

The partnership between Etihad and S7 Airlines allows the two carriers to market and sell seats on each other’s flights, giving passengers a wider choice of destinations.

Etihad flies daily to Moscow. Etihad passengers can also fly to the Russian cities of Kazan, Krasnodar, Saint Petersburg, Samara, Ufa and Yekaterinburg – thanks to its original codeshare agreement with S7 Airline that dates to 2010.

Simultaneously, S7 Airlines will place its code on a number of Etihad flights from Abu Dhabi to Singapore, Bangkok, Phuket and Sydney.

Etihad’s strategy is to increase its reach by buying minority stakes in other airlines and through codeshares. So far, Etihad has equity stakes in Alitalia, airberlin, Air Serbia, Air Seychelles, Jet Airways and Etihad Regional, formerly known as Darwin Airline.

The Abu Dhabi carrier’s codeshares give it a combined passenger and cargo network of about 580 destinations. Etihad has 49 codeshare agreements, according to its website, including with airlines such as Aegean, Turkish and Air France.

Etihad said last Thursday that it would make the Boeing 787 Dreamliner its flagship long-haul aircraft as it expects to receive 66 Dreamliners over the coming years.

Starting from May next year, Etihad will fly the 299-seat plane to Düsseldorf, Perth, Shanghai, Istanbul and Johannesburg. It already flies five 787s to Brisbane, Washington, Singapore and Zurich from Abu Dhabi.

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