Fabrice Ebner, Director, France, Etihad Airways

How is your business doing in France?

Fabrice Ebner - We are satisfied with our first year of operation. We started in May with six weekly flights and over the last few months have achieved a cabin load factor of 70 %. Since the start of the year, we've even reached 94 %! This has prompted us to step up the number of flights to Paris; from September we will be increasing to ten weekly flights. We have fourteen frequencies a week in terms of traffic rights, and we're going to start by strengthening our Paris network before targeting the provinces. We are also currently working on a pre-routing agreement with the SNCF for our passengers in the regions.

What product improvements are you proposing?

Fabrice Ebner - Since the end of June we have been offering a pure Etihad product with a three-class Airbus A330-200. On board, passengers in first (Diamond) and business (Pearl) classes benefit from a "full-flat bed", a seat that converts into a real bed horizontally. We offer complimentary limousine transfers for high-contribution passengers to Abu Dhabi, as well as Dubai, and a bus for economy-class passengers. We have also launched a loyalty programme, Etihad Guest, with unique advantages such as the purchase of household appliances with miles...

What are your strengths in terms of service?

Fabrice Ebner - At present, the breakdown of our traffic from France is as follows: 35 % of passengers go to Abu Dhabi-Dubai, 50 % to Bangkok and 15 % to India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. This should change as we have reorganised our connections in Abu Dhabi to the rest of the Gulf, where we offer very short transfer times to Oman, Qatar and Saudi Arabia; we are also strengthening our flights to India and have improved our transfers to Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur and Manila. Finally, we have high hopes for the opening of our flight to Sydney, which will enable us to offer a product equivalent to that of our competitors in terms of quality.