Clients booked on Etihad Airways between Barcelona and Abu Dhabi will be flying on Avianca aircraft with Avianca crews through Oct. 25, 2027. The latter began operating the route on behalf of Etihad on Oct. 25, 2026, using Boeing 787 Dreamliners, while Etihad markets the flights under its own airline code.
The arrangement is a wet lease, known in the aviation industry as ACMI, for aircraft, crew, maintenance and insurance. Avianca supplies all four for Etihad, the national airline of the United Arab Emirates, and its 787s on the route carry up to 291 passengers. It is also Avianca’s debut in the UAE market.
Avianca Unfurls its Wings
The Barcelona flights are among the earliest results of a strategic partnership between Etihad and Grupo Abra, which includes Avianca. The two companies announced the partnership on July 21 in Farnborough, United Kingdom, through a memorandum of understanding to improve links among Latin America, the Middle East and Asia by drawing on the combined Etihad and Avianca networks. With this first operation, the latter is putting its long-haul flight expertise and its crews to work for a strategic partner of the group.
The airline, a Star Alliance member, has operated for more than 106 years and is the top airline group in Colombia, Ecuador and Central America. Its fleet consists mainly of A320 and 787 passenger aircraft, along with cargo aircraft, and in 2025 the airline carried nearly 37 million customers on more than 262,000 flights.
On the passenger side, Avianca runs more than 700 daily flights on more than 160 routes, connecting more than 80 destinations in more than 25 countries across the Americas and Europe. Lifemiles, the airline’s loyalty program, counts more than 16 million members and ranks among Latin America’s largest.
For more information, visit avianca.com.
