For about five years, Abu Dhabi tried to build a global airline by buying pieces of other people’s.
Minority stakes in Berlin, Rome, Mumbai, the Seychelles, Belgrade, Brisbane. It was the fastest route to
a worldwide network anyone had attempted, and it very nearly worked.
Then, across four months in 2017, two of those airlines collapsed. Etihad Airways has
spent the years since rebuilding around the opposite idea.
Where it came from
Etihad was established by Emiri decree in July 2003 as a national airline of the UAE, and began flying
in November that year — a ceremonial flight to Al Ain on 5 November, then commercial operations on 12
November with a service to Beirut.
It is worth being precise about a thing that confuses outsiders constantly: the UAE has
two flag carriers. Emirates belongs to Dubai. Etihad belongs to Abu Dhabi. They are not
divisions of one national airline, and they compete.
Etihad is based at Zayed International Airport, and its fortunes are tied to that airport’s. Terminal
A’s first commercial departure was Etihad’s EY224 to New Delhi on 31 October 2023, into a building that
can handle up to 45 million passengers a year — see our guide to
Terminal A and Abu
Dhabi’s transfer bet. The airport was renamed Zayed International in February 2024, in honour of
Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan.
The equity-alliance years
Under chief executive James Hogan, Etihad pursued scale by acquisition rather than by adding its own
aircraft. Reported holdings included Air Berlin, Air Seychelles, Jet Airways, Air Serbia, Darwin Airline,
Virgin Australia — and 49% of Alitalia.
The logic was sound on paper. Buying into established carriers bought feed into the Abu Dhabi hub
instantly, in markets where Etihad could never have won traffic rights or slots on its own timetable.
The execution ran into a problem that equity cannot solve: several of those airlines were losing money
before Etihad arrived, and continued to lose it afterwards.
Alitalia entered extraordinary administration on 2 May 2017, after Etihad declined to
provide further support. Air Berlin filed for insolvency on 15 August 2017, when Etihad,
its largest shareholder, stopped funding it. Two European flag carriers, four months apart, both
connected to the same Abu Dhabi balance sheet.
The cost was extraordinary. Etihad reported a net loss of USD 1.87 billion for 2016 — later revised
upward — and USD 1.52 billion for 2017: cumulatively more than USD 3.5 billion across two years. The 2016
figure included roughly USD 808 million of charges tied to Alitalia and Air Berlin, and around USD 1.06
billion in aircraft impairments. Those are figures Etihad announced at the time and that were widely
reported; we cite them as such.
Hogan left in 2017. The board halted the strategy of growing non-organically by investing in
loss-making overseas airlines.
The reset
Antonoaldo Neves became group chief executive in October 2022, succeeding Tony Douglas, who left to
lead Riyadh Air. Neves arrived with an unusual CV for a Gulf carrier: he had run TAP Air Portugal, been
president of Azul in Brazil — which he took to an NYSE listing — and been a partner at McKinsey.
The same month, on 18 October 2022, the Supreme Council for Financial and Economic Affairs transferred
full ownership of Etihad Aviation Group to ADQ, stating the aim of strengthening the
emirate’s position as a global aviation hub delivering integrated and competitive aviation services, with
the group continuing as part of ADQ’s aviation portfolio.
That is the ownership chain to state accurately: Etihad sits inside ADQ, and ADQ now sits under
L’IMAD — not under “the Government of Abu Dhabi” flatly. Our profile of
ADQ and the L’IMAD
reorganisation covers the holding structure, and it puts Etihad alongside
AD Ports and
Etihad Rail in a single
transport and logistics portfolio.
Journey 2030, announced in November 2023 alongside the airline’s twentieth
anniversary, is the plan that replaced the equity strategy. It originally targeted 33 million passengers
a year by 2030 — revised upward to 38 million in July 2025, as reported by The National — with
the fleet roughly doubling and the network extending beyond 125 destinations, connecting short and
medium-haul points across the GCC, India and Asia with long-haul Europe and North America.
Note what that is not. It is not a retreat. The fleet roughly doubles and the passenger target went
up after the plan was published. What changed is the method: growth funded from Etihad’s own
operations and flown on Etihad’s own aircraft, rather than bought as minority stakes in other people’s
loss-making carriers.
The IPO that has not happened
This needs stating plainly, because a great deal of published material — and, notably, automated search
summaries — now asserts the opposite.
Etihad has not listed. There has been no IPO. It does not trade on the Abu Dhabi Securities
Exchange.
The airline has been described as IPO-ready since 2025, and a float of roughly 20% on ADX has been
reported as prepared more than once. In February 2025 Neves told reporters the airline could float a
stake “as early as this month”. It did not. Reporting through 2025 then described the deal as delayed;
as of August 2026 no listing has taken place, and ADQ remains the sole shareholder.
Two independent checks confirm it. Coverage of the UAE IPO market as recently as this month still names
Etihad among companies tipped as potential future candidates — a description that cannot apply to
a company already trading. And ADX’s own record shows its first public offering of 2026 was a luxury
UCITS ETF in January, not an airline.
The reason there is no urgency is the same reason the strategy changed. Neves has said Etihad can
self-fund its growth plan, and that the decision to list rests with the shareholder. For readers
interested in what a listing would involve, our guide to
how ADX works covers the
exchange.
What the story is really about
The equity-alliance era is usually written up as a cautionary tale about hubris. It is more
interesting than that.
Abu Dhabi made one serious attempt to buy global scale quickly, in the one industry where scale is
everything and where its neighbour had a fifteen-year head start. The attempt failed expensively and
publicly. What followed was not withdrawal but a change of method — the airline was consolidated into a
sovereign holding company, given a chief executive with a turnaround record, and set a growth plan it
funds itself.
Whether that produces an airline the size of its neighbour is not really the question any more. It
produces an airline sized to Abu Dhabi, which is a different and more defensible thing — and a
demonstration that the emirate’s institutions learn from expensive mistakes rather than repeating them.
Primary sources: the Abu Dhabi Government Media Office on the
transfer
of Etihad Aviation Group to ADQ and on
Terminal
A’s first passengers;
Zayed
International Airport; and ADQ.
Loss figures and equity holdings from the 2016–17 period are as announced by Etihad and reported at the
time. This article is general information, not investment advice.
