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Etihad's service to Toronto dates back to 2005 when it became the airline's first North American destination. Over the years, various aircraft models have been deployed on this route including the A330-200, A340-500, A340-600, 777-300ER, and 787-9. Now, starting June 24, 2025, its 486-seat Airbus A380 will take over.
This change means replacing the current 371-seat A350-1000 model which took over from the 777-300ER in October 2024 and was scheduled to operate through 2025. The A350-1000 will now be reassigned to New York instead.
The equipment swap is expected to provide Toronto with additional premium seats including two three-room The Residence suites, nine first-class seats, and an extra twenty-six business class seats. Almost seventeen percent of all available seats will be premium compared to twelve percent with the previous model.
The daily schedule for Abu Dhabi-Toronto flights is as follows:
Abu Dhabi to Toronto: EY21 departing at02:40 arriving at09:00
Toronto to Abu Dhabi: EY22 departing at13:40 arriving at11:00+1
With this addition and removal from New York JFK service list; Etihad's superjumbo network by August includes London Heathrow (triple daily), Paris CDG (daily), Singapore (daily), and now Toronto (daily).
Currently operating six A380s out of a planned seven—down from ten originally— it remains unclear when the seventh aircraft will reenter service after being flown from storage in Teruel Spain back into Abu Dhabi in December last year.
Etihad largely relies on transit passengers through its Abu Dhabi hub with most travelers connecting onwards via another flight segment—a trend expected continued among Toronto-bound customers too according data insights revealing approximately215000 roundtrip passengers connected through Abu Dhabi during their journey last year alone—with three-quarters traveling between India- significantly higher than comparable figures reported by Emirates or Qatar Airways counterparts while Pakistan Sri Lanka Saudi Arabia Thailand followed suit albeit smaller numbers respectively
Vincenzo Pace | Simple Flying reports that within these connections; Toronto-Delhi stood out as most popular origin-destination pair accounting for substantial share despite representing just around five percent market slice- alongside other key segments such Ahmedabad Mumbai Kochi Hyderabad Colombo Chennai Karachi Bengaluru Islamabad Thiruvananthapuram Lahore Jeddah Doha Riyadh Bangkok Muscat Kuwait Kolkata Kozhikode collectively constituting roughly ninety-three percent transit traffic volume handled via Etihad between Canada'' Indian subcontinent regions among others throughout past year period observed accordingly