Etihad Leases London Heathrow Airport Slots from American Airlines

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ABU DHABI- The national carrier of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Etihad (EY) will lease slots from American Airlines (AA) at London Heathrow Airport (LHR).

American Airlines will lease Etihad a daily slot for the summer 2025 season. Etihad can now use these slots from 30 March 2025 to 25 October 2025. The lease period can be extended at any time.

Etihad Lease American Heathrow Slots

Etihad Airways has filed for additional flights to London Heathrow from Abu Dhabi (AUH) with these new slots. According to the filing, the airline will operate another daily flight EY703. The Aircraft type filed is a 196-seater Airbus A321.

Strangely, the airline has filed for the flights with a narrow-body aircraft. The A321s have the range to cover this route but it could just be a tight one for a narrow-body aircraft.

However, this could be the preliminary filing and, in all likelihood, the airline will surely make further changes to the schedule. The bookings for these additional flights are not yet available for reservations.

Etihad Airways currently operates 4 daily flights to Heathrow. All of these flights are operated with widebody aircraft. The airline also operates the world’s largest passenger aircraft, the Airbus A380-800 between Abu Dhabi and London.

Etihad Airways operates Airbus A380-800 twelve times a week, Boeing 787-9 nine times a week, and Boeing 787-10 seven times a week. The airline offers a total of 28 weekly flights.

Philadelphia Slots Leased

American Airlines had plans to originally operate flights between Philadelphia (PHL) and London with these slots. However, this slot filed as AA138 seems to be unutilized as of 10^th January 2025.

American Airlines currently flies between Philadelphia and London Heathrow once a day. The airline will introduce a 2^nd daily flight in this sector in the summer season of 2025.

The airline flies to London Heathrow from 10 cities in the United States. In total, the airline operates 133 weekly flights as of 10th January 2025. That’s 19 flights on average a day. American Airlines will end their seasonal Las Vegas (LAS)–Heathrow flights on 12^th January 2025.

The airline also plans to launch a new daily non-stop flight between Phoenix (PHX) and London – Heathrow starting on March 30^th, 2025.

Lack of slots at Heathrow

London Heathrow is one of the most important hubs in the world. As per the OAG, Heathrow is the world’s 2^nd busiest international airport in terms of seats, behind only Dubai (DXB).

The airport is the primary base for British Airways (BA) and Virgin Atlantic (VS). This has made Heathrow one of the most congested airports in the world.

Getting slots at this airport has been getting increasingly difficult, forcing airlines to look at alternatives such as leasing the slots from other airlines. There is also a restriction placed by the Government on Night-time flights.

Flights between 23:30 hours and 06:00 hours in the early morning are heavily restricted by the government. This restriction on flights has also contributed to making the slots even more scarce.

To tackle this, Heathrow Airport has plans to build a third runway. However, it remains unclear as to when the construction of the runway will actually start and when the airport plans to operationalize the new runway.

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EXCLUSIVE: Virgin Atlantic Gets London Heathrow Slots from Emirates, EL AL and Saudia

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