Etihad Airways CEO James Hogan. "Etihad is the de-facto national airline of Ireland for those heading east."

by Billy Cantwell

Etihad Airways is the de-facto national carrier of Ireland for those wishing to fly east, the carrier’s CEO James Hogan told the Irish Echo last week in Sydney.

“It is unique for a country’s national carrier not to fly east,” he said, referring to Aer Lingus, who fly no further east than Burgas in Bulgaria. “You could say we are the de facto national carrier of Ireland for those travelling east.”

The Melbournian also heaped praise on his Irish staff and both former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and the man who replaced him Brian Cowen, hailed the airline’s sponsorship of the All Ireland Hurling Championship as “a good deal for Etihad and Ireland” and held out the probability of adding Perth as an Australian destination in the near future.

He also opined that Ireland’s future economic opportunities may lie in the Middle East and South East Asia and pointed to the success of the Dublin-Abu Dhabi route as evidence of that.

Mr Hogan, who previously ran Gulf Air and British Midland, was in Australia last week for meetings with his local staff.

He said Etihad’s decision to invest in Dublin as a destination had paid off.

“The Abu Dhabi Dublin leg has been very successful in its own right,” he said.

“It’s got an 80 per cent seat factor which means at peak times, it’s full.”

He said there were many push factors for the Abu Dhabi route out of Dublin, which connects with flights to Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.

“There’s the 200,000 Irish people coming to Australia each year, there’s a huge Irish expat community in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and in Saudi Arabia, there also are 30,000 Chinese nationals living in Ireland and we connect well to Beijing.

“Obviously, the chance to bypass the other European hubs flying east is a major plus for travellers,” he said.

Many Australia-based Irish expats have also chosen Etihad for this one-stop service into Dublin which is the fastest door-to-door option between the two countries at just over 24 hours travelling east and 26 hours travelling west.

He would not be drawn on the cost of the airline’s high profile sponsorship of the All Ireland Hurling Championship but said he was keen for it to continue.

“We’re currently in negotiations with the GAA,” he said. “The sponsorship’s been good for both Etihad and Ireland. If we can do the right deal moving forward we’re keen to stick with it.”

Mr Hogan said he was saddened by Ireland’s economic problems but, he said, the business had been recruiting Irish staff.

“My HR manager is Irish as is one of my head IT guys. We recently took on a number of Irish cabin crew. Two years ago, Irish nationals didn’t want those jobs.”

He was a guest at the recent Global Irish Economic Forum in Dublin and said he was surprised that the focus of the event was so concentrated on the United States.

“Ninety per cent of the talk was America. There are huge opportunities for Ireland east, not just in the Middle east but in South East Asia. I met some incredible Irish entrepreneurs who are working in Beijing and Shanghai.”

He said that Etihad had played a role in opening up Asian markets for Ireland by creating that air corridor to Abu Dhabi.

Of the future, he said that the airline planned to expand its operations into Ireland.

Working closely with Tourism Ireland in south-east Asia had helped to build the inbound traffic from markets like Thailand.

The airline has talks lined up with the Australian government next year. Hogan hopes to discuss new opportunities then.

“We have 28 frequencies out of Australia at the moment, we use 21 of them. We have 11 flights a week out of Sydney, we’re daily out of Melbourne and three out of Brisbane. We’d like to fly daily out of Brisbane. We’d also like to go to Perth and part of those discussions will be about how we expand our bilaterals.”

While ruling out any possible mergers, Mr Hogan said the airline would look at acquisition possibilities although the embattled Aer Lingus would not be a carrier they would be looking at.