15-03-2025
UAE: New Etihad Airways route to Indonesia's Medan now open for bookings
Etihad Airways' new direct route to Indonesia's popular island destination of Medan is now open for booking, the airline said in a statement.
Flights between Kualanamu International Airport and Zayed International Airport will commence on October 2, 2025.
Medan is the capital and largest city of North Sumatra in Indonesia and it is known for its vibrant culture, diverse culinary scene, and historical landmarks.
Etihad Airways, the national airline of the UAE, is set to fly three times a week to the popular destination using the new Airbus A321LR aircraft.
Etihad's flight EY480 will depart Abu Dhabi at 20.45pm to reach Medan at 6.45am on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Flight EY481 will take off from Medan at 8.45am to land in Abu Dhabi at 12.40pm every Wednesday, Friday and Sunday.
New destinations
The destination is one of 14 already announced by Etihad this year, with more expected to come.
The new destinations that will be introduced starting July 2025 onwards, also include Atlanta, Taipei, Phnom Penh, Krabi, Tunis, Chiang Mai, Hong Kong, Hanoi and Algiers.
'For a lot of these cities, ours will be the only non-stop flight from the UAE. So if you want to go to Medan (in North Sumatra), there will be no other flights outside of Abu Dhabi,' said Arik De Chief, Revenue and Commercial Officer at Etihad.
A lot of the flights have been optimised to connect to Europe. 'If you want to go from Hanoi (Vietnam) to Paris, there is a lot of French influence in Vietnam. Etihad has the fastest connectivity than any other airlines in the region. So, we've put a lot of focus on the route network from Asia,' he added.
Etihad forecasts 2025 to be the 'biggest year in Etihad's history', expecting to carry more than double the 10 million passengers it carried last year, to over 90 destinations compared to 64 in 2022.
'We have 95 planes today and 18 to 19 million passengers and we will get go 115 operating planes next year,' said its chief executive Antonaldo Neves.
The airline is reportedly set to announce a $1 billion (Dh3.67 billion) initial public offering (IPO), Reuters new agency reported last month, quoting two sources.
