It seems the Etihad-Altalia partnership is bearing more fruit, with Etihad adding more seats between Abu Dhabi and Rome with the the daily service operated by Etihad being upgraded to a Boeing 777-300ER (two class) from an Airbus A330-200.
This combines with Alitalia’s daily frequency operated by an A330-200.
Capacity increases are normally good news as more seats become availbile for passengers to get extra seats. The new plans will add:
- Etihad two class 777-300ER will offer 28 business seats and 384 economy seats (total 412) vs the 20 business seats and 240 economy seats on an A330 (net increase 152 seats a day)
- Alitalia three-class A330-200 will offer 20 Business seats, 17 Premium Economy seats and and 219 seats Economy (total 256 seats).
A net increase of 1064 seats a week each way between the two cities – useful capacity.
The changes are listed in Etihad’s booking engine (and through your booking engine of choice), for bookings from the 29th March 2015:
Extra capacity is normally a welcome sign that a route is improving enough to send a larger plane. With the partial takeover of Alitalia, hopefully Etihad’s plan of funnelling more traffic through Abu Dhabi will improve the performance of Alitalia’s long haul operations…
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