Visit the city of love: Etihad Airways to start daily flights from Abu Dhabi to Venice

Gondoliers row in the Grand Canal in Venice. Stefano Rellandini / Reuters

Etihad Airways is to expand its services to Italy with a daily flight to Venice Marco Polo Airport.

The new service will begin from October 30 and be served by an Airbus A319, offering 16 seats in business and 90 in economy.

Together with Alitalia, its codeshare and equity partner, Etihad will offer 35 weekly flights in and out of Italy, including double daily services to Rome and Milan.

Etihad started flights to Milan in 2007 before Rome was added to the network in 2014. Bilateral trade with Italy was valued at $6.14 billion in 2015 and the UAE Ministry of Economy has registered more than 90 Italian companies.

“Launching our service to Venice further supports a very popular passenger route between Italy, our Abu Dhabi hub and onwards throughout Etihad Airways’ growing network, as far afield as Australia,” said Kevin Knight, Etihad Airways’ chief strategy and planning officer.

“Together with our codeshare and equity partner Alitalia, we are also strengthening the significant trade relationship between Italy and the UAE.”

Alitalia currently operates the Venice to Abu Dhabi route in code share with Etihad and is to redeploy its aircraft on its international network from the 2016 winter schedule.

Alitalia will codeshare on the new Etihad flight, maintaining access to Abu Dhabi and Etihad Airways’ global network for its Venice-based customers, Etihad said in a statement.

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