UAE national carrier Etihad and Jet Airways have become two of the fastest growing airlines in India, due to their partnership which allowed both the airlines to collectively use Abu Dhabi as a hub for Indian globetrotters to travel between their country and the rest of the world. Directorate General of Civil Aviation data on international traffic for calendar year 2015, shows that the top 10 airlines in terms of flying passengers to and from the country mostly remained the same as last year, except for that Etihad entered the list at 5, by flying 2140,000 passengers in and out of India. It was at number 16 in 2014 with a traffic of under 1000,000.
Jet Airways remained the single largest airline here in terms of international passenger carriage, carrying 7070,000 flyers in and out of India in 2015. While Etihad's growth over 100 per cent growth in India is mainly because of its competitive pricing, Jet has witnessed a surge in international passengers as it feeds into Etihad's hub at Abu Dhabi from 10 Indian cities. Together, both the airways carried around 9210,000 people in 2015, almost a million more than Air India and AI Expresss' combined figure of 8230,000.
Thanks to the Jet-Etihad tie-up, now the top 10 airlines by international passenger carriage have four Indian and six Gulf carriers. Indian carriers' that fly abroad - AI group, Jet, IndiGo and SpiceJet
-together flew 18 million people in and out of India last year and Gulf carriers together were not far behind at about 15 million. While Etihad India head could not be contacted, top travel industry figures in India said Etihad has adopted a multi-pronged strategy to woo Indian flyers.
