Etihad Airways will provide its customers, access to the luxury holiday destination of Maldives, following an extension of its existing codeshare agreement with Sri Lankan Airlines.

Under the deal, Etihad will place its two-letter ‘EY’ code on all of Sri Lankan Airlines’ services between the Sri Lankan capital of Colombo and Mahe, the main city in the Maldives.

Etihad has code-shared with Sri Lankan Airlines since September 2007, an agreement which up until now has only applied to flights between Abu Dhabi and Colombo.

“Etihad’s codeshare with Sri Lankan Airlines has worked well during the last year and we are pleased to extend the deal and provide our customers with flights to the Maldives which we expect will be hugely popular with our holiday makers,” said James Hogan, Etihad Airways’ chief executive.

Customers of Sri Lankan Airlines will also be able to access key destinations on Etihad’s global flight network, including convenient connections from Abu Dhabi to Damascus, Beirut and Jeddah in the Middle East as well as Geneva, Munich, Manchester, New York and Toronto.

Etihad and Sri Lankan have also signed a reciprocal agreement to link their respective frequent flyer programmes.-TradeArabia News Service