Middle East Business

Etihad opens a year-round Abu Dhabi to Red Sea service from 4 October with flights of just over three hours

By Staff Writer  |  9 September 2026

The airline's sixth Saudi destination is Red Sea International Airport in Tabuk Province, which sits inside the destination itself. The route starts at one flight a week and doubles from 25 October, flown by an Airbus A320 with eight business and 150 economy seats, and gives the resort coast a single-connection link across the Gulf and the Indian subcontinent.

Etihad Airways, the UAE's national airline, announced on 8 September 2026 that it will fly to Saudi Arabia's Red Sea coast from 4 October 2026. The year-round service to Red Sea International Airport in Tabuk Province adds a leisure destination just over three hours from Abu Dhabi, and the airline says guests across its network will be able to reach it with a single connection, including from across the Gulf and the Indian subcontinent.

The route begins on 4 October with one flight a week and rises to two a week from 25 October 2026. It is operated by an Airbus A320 with eight seats in business and 150 in economy. The Red Sea becomes Etihad's sixth destination in Saudi Arabia, alongside Riyadh, Jeddah, Dammam, Medina and Al Qassim.

An airport inside the destination

Red Sea International Airport sits within the destination it serves, so arriving guests reach their hotels soon after landing rather than making a long transfer. The airline describes the coast as more than ninety islands off Saudi Arabia's north-western shore, in shallow water above one of the largest coral systems in the world, with resorts spread along the coast rather than gathered in one place.

Antonoaldo Neves, Chief Executive Officer of Etihad Airways, said the kind of holiday people normally take a long-haul flight for was now a short flight from Abu Dhabi and a single connection from anywhere on the airline's network.

We are always looking ahead to where our guests will want to travel next and making sure we are there early. The Red Sea is exactly that kind of destination, and it is an easy one to reach: the holiday starts on the day guests arrive, not the day after.

Antonoaldo Neves, Chief Executive Officer of Etihad Airways

For visitors from further afield, the airline points to a two-destination holiday through its Abu Dhabi stopover programme, with a few days in the UAE capital before continuing to the Saudi coast. The airline says its existing Saudi routes carry business, family and religious travel through the year, and that the Red Sea adds a holiday destination to that mix.

What the route means for the destination

The destination's utilities system reached commercial operation on 6 September, reported separately on this tab, and its hotels, airport and logistics hub are already served by that system. A scheduled year-round service from a Gulf hub is the kind of connection that turns a resort under construction into an operating one, and it brings the destination within a single connection of the airline's long-haul network for the first time.

The airline's release is a route announcement. It does not say which of the destination's hotels its guests will use, whether frequencies will rise beyond two a week, or what load factor the route needs. Fares are on sale on the airline's own site. Those points are left open here.