Etihad's top bod, James Hogan, gave a talk at the RAeS last week - with most of the press coverage focusing on the battle between the US airlines and the ME3 over subsidies (amusingly he only mentioned the words Emirates and Qatar during questions).
Following reports that Etihad's premium Residence product was suffering from a lack of bookings - I asked him how long he would persevere with the suite if it continued to lack sales.
Of course he didn't directly answer the question! But he did claim that on the London to Abu Dhabi route, it sells two or three times a week (presumably out of 14 possible slots), and repeated the claim that he is very pleased with sales.
He did however make some interesting points: firstly that it doesn't actually take up that much space - and seemed to congratulate his media team for getting so much coverage for such a small suite !
He also pointed out that the space at the front of the upper deck couldn't be used for passenger seats (it was too cramped) - and that Emirates choice of putting in a shower meant that it was only actually occupied during about 25% of the flight.
James Hogan's main defence seemed to be around the positive publicity that The Residence gave the airline - he talked both about the "halo effect" and that the Residence website had received millions of hits during the few months since it was launched.
It sounds like this premium product is here to stay - at least whilst Hogan leads Etihad.
Following reports that Etihad's premium Residence product was suffering from a lack of bookings - I asked him how long he would persevere with the suite if it continued to lack sales.
Of course he didn't directly answer the question! But he did claim that on the London to Abu Dhabi route, it sells two or three times a week (presumably out of 14 possible slots), and repeated the claim that he is very pleased with sales.
He did however make some interesting points: firstly that it doesn't actually take up that much space - and seemed to congratulate his media team for getting so much coverage for such a small suite !
He also pointed out that the space at the front of the upper deck couldn't be used for passenger seats (it was too cramped) - and that Emirates choice of putting in a shower meant that it was only actually occupied during about 25% of the flight.
James Hogan's main defence seemed to be around the positive publicity that The Residence gave the airline - he talked both about the "halo effect" and that the Residence website had received millions of hits during the few months since it was launched.
It sounds like this premium product is here to stay - at least whilst Hogan leads Etihad.
