Joost den Hartog, Etihad Airways’ current country manager for Pakistan and acting country manager for China, has been appointed Regional General Manager (RGM) for the Indian sub-continent, Central and North Asia, where he will lead the Abu Dhabi-based airline’s growing presence.

Previously based in Karachi as area manager for Pakistan, Mr Den Hartog led a period of strong growth for the airline’s network in Pakistan. During his tenure Etihad’s operations in Pakistan grew from four weekly flights in February 2006 to 28 flights and three additional cities. In 2007 Etihad’s total revenue in Pakistan increased by 80 per cent year on year, significantly exceeding its budget targets for the year and earning the award for the best outstation of the year.

The new role, which takes effect from 1 June this year, will see him based in Bangkok with responsibility for a region including India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, China, Nepal and Kazakhstan.

Mr Den Hartog said: “In order to maintain our ranking as amongst the leading airlines operating in Pakistan, we offer unparalleled services, state of the art facilities and uncompromised comfort and convenience to all our passengers, and I will continue to work on that strategy in the future for this entire region.”

“I am very pleased to have the chance to experience new challenges and look forward to working with a great team of people to expand and enhance the services we offer to passengers from the sub continent, central and north Asia.

Adrian Parkes, Etihad Airways’ vice president sales, said: “This new position reflects the airline’s ambitious growth and development plans in the respective regions. For example, we started services to Beijing in China recently and announced plans to fly to Almaty in Kazakhstan in December 2008.

“The airline is also boosting its flying programme to India with the addition of four new destinations - Chennai (Madras), Jaipur, Kolkata (Calcutta) and Kozhikode (Calicut) - following successful bi-lateral talks earlier this year between the governments of the UAE and India.”

In addition, flights to Kozhikode and Chennai will start this northern summer, with the launch dates of the other two new routes to be announced later in 2008. Etihad is pushing to secure traffic rights to further cities in India, including Ahmedabad, Amritsar, Bangalore and Hyderabad.

Etihad Airways currently flies 14 times a week from Karachi, 7 times a week from Lahore and Islamabad and two times per week from Peshawar to Abu Dhabi, providing swift and convenient onward connections to the airline’s fast growing global network of 45 destinations.

-Ends-

About Etihad Airways:

Etihad Airways is the National Airline of the United Arab Emirates and based in the UAE’s capital, Abu Dhabi. Currently Etihad offers flights to 48 destinations in the Middle East, Europe, North America, Africa and Asia. For further information visit www.etihadairways.com.

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Zara

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Zara Nazim

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