São Paulo – Brazilians will lose a direct flight option to the United Arab Emirates next year. The route São Paulo-Abu Dhabi, operated by Etihad Airways, will be suspended indefinitely on March 26, 2017, reported the company in a statement.
According to it, the Brazilian economic scenario and the real’s sharp devaluation had a strong impact on the flights to Abu Dhabi. “The performance of the route has fallen short of company expectations and the difficult decision has been made to indefinitely suspend operations,” said Etihad.
Passengers with flights booked beyond March 25, the date of the last EY 190 flight out of the Guarulhos International Airport, will be offered two alternatives: full refund of the tickets or travel via Rome through Alitalia, a partner airline of the United Arab Emirates company. These passengers will be contacted in the next few days, said the statement.
With this, the only direct Brazil-UAE flight options will be the flights to Dubai operated by Emirates Airline from São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. Passengers going to the Gulf can also travel with Qatar Airways, which has a direct flight to Doha.
Launched on June 2013, the flights between São Paulo and Abu Dhabi by Etihad carried more than 460,000 passengers in the three years that they were active in.
*Translated by Sérgio Kakitani
