KATHMANDU: Etihad Airways — the national airline of United Arab Emirates — will increase its Abu Dhabi Kathmandu services from four to seven flights per week from January 2010.

Etihad’s flights to Kathmandu, which were launched in December 2008, have proved extremely popular with travellers, providing high volume of traffic into Abu Dhabi and the Middle East, as well as transit traffic to destinations including London and Frankfurt in Western Europe as well as New York and Chicago in North Americe.

Joost den Hartog, general manager of Etihad Airways said, “In addition to the strong demand for flights from Nepalese nationals who work in Abu Dhabi and farther fields, we have seen a strengthening in corporate and leisure traffic which is important to the economic development of Nepal.”

Etihad took the top award at this year’s World Travel Awards (WTA), being voted the world’s leading airlines by more than 180,000 travel industry professionals from over 175 countrie.

Etihad chief executive James Hogan said, “Three years ago, Ettihad set itself one clear and simple goal — to be best airline in the world, and we are proud that the Ettihad people all over the world embraced that vision, supporting our investment in state-of-the-art products by delivering superb customer service.” He added that Etihad is honoured to be recognised as the world’s leading airline by travel agents and other industry professionals.

At the same time, Etihad has announced the appointment of Ken Marshall as its country manager in Nepal. Based in Kathmandu, Marshall will take over from outgoing manager Kumar de Silva to oversee the airline’s operations in Nepal. Welcoming the new country manager of Etihad, Peter

Baumgartner — chief commercial officer of Etihad — said,”Marshall will bring extensive experience and expertise to this market, where he will build on the work of his predecessor Kumar de Silva.”

Marshall has a long standing association with the aviation industry in the country, having worked with some of the leading airlines of the world prior to joining Etihad Airways. He started with Orient Travels, Karachi, in 1977 and worked his way through Indian Airlines and British Airways, among others.