The addition of these new flights will further strengthen the Jet Airways’ growing international network and significantly enhance international flight connectivity to the Gulf and beyond to North America, Europe and Africa with its strategic partner, Etihad Airways.

The cities of Ahmedabad, Goa, Lucknow and Pune are fast developing with growing importance in the business world. Guests from these smaller metros can now enjoy the advantage of direct seamless connectivity from home cities to Abu Dhabi with one stop connections to international destinations such as Brussels, Manchester, Dusseldorf, Dublin, Belgrade, Moscow, Milan, Frankfurt, Munich and Paris in Europe and Washington, Los Angeles and Chicago in North America with the introduction of these flights.

Gaurang Shetty, Senior Vice President – Commercial, Jet Airways, said: “It is indeed a proud moment for us at Jet Airways to be introducing our maiden international flights from Ahmedabad, Goa, Lucknow and Pune to Abu Dhabi. Guests travelling to Abu Dhabi will now have multiple options to travel to destinations of their choice to North America, Europe, Africa and Middle East in a seamless manner with our strategic partner Etihad Airways and other interline partners. This is truly an indication of the strong demand from the smaller metros and linking up more cities with international destinations apart from giving a boost to trade and tourism besides providing job opportunities.

"Jet Airways, as a preferred brand on this highly competitive Indo-Gulf market, has won acclaim on account of its excellent service and quality of its in-flight product. We are confident that our airline will soon emerge as an automatic first choice amongst carriers on these popular routes, given our unparalleled domestic network and an ever expanding international footprint.”

The introduction of these new services to Abu Dhabi, further reinforces Jet Airways’ commitment to the people from these newly growing cities and Indian expatriates working in the Gulf as well as connecting them to a large number of global destinations via the gateway point of Abu Dhabi. Jet Airways currently operates a daily flight each from Delhi, Kochi, Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and 11 flights a week from Mumbai to Abu Dhabi.

With these new enhanced flights, Jet Airways will achieve the landmark milestone of becoming India’s first private airline to operate over 50 daily flights to multiple destinations in the Gulf. This includes daily departures to Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, Dubai, Doha, Kuwait, Sharjah, Muscat, Jeddah, Dammam and Riyadh, thus, making the airline the largest operator between India and the Gulf.

The airline will deploy Boeing 737-800 Next Generation (NG) aircraft on this route, where Premiere and Economy guests may enjoy the airline’s famed in-flight service, its award-winning In-flight Entertainment (IFE) programme and the airline's hallmark concept of hospitality.