How to get to | Abu Dhabi

This is part of a series of blog entries on how to get to countries and places. Here is a link to the index. I plan to eventually cover every country and some other places. If you have a request for a particular country or place please use the email me link at top right, or leave a comment.




Abu Dhabi

Source: Ian Anderson

Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) can be reached by land from the other UAE Emirates and from Oman at Al Ain. Airlines flying to Abu Dhabi (the city) include:

• Star Alliance - EgyptAir, Lufthansa, Singapore, Thai, Turkish
• Oneworld - British Airways, Royal Jordanian
• Sky Team - KLM
• Other Selected - Etihad, most Persian Gulf and Indian subcontinent airlines

TIP There are some fifth freedom flights between Abu Dhabi and other places in the Middle East, eg British Airways between Abu Dhabi and Muscat. These can be relatively inexpensive.

TIP It may be relatively cheaper to fly via Abu Dhabi with a stopover than to fly a simple round trip, whether on a paid ticket or an award ticket. For example Australia to Abu Dhabi is often not much less than Australia to Europe via Abu Dhabi.

TIP If visiting somewhere else in Middle East and flying on Etihad it is usually worthwhile on paid tickets to make the other place the destination with a stopover in Abu Dhabi. The cost is the same or very little extra compared with Abu Dhabi as destination. The opposite applies if flying other gulf airlines (ie if flying Gulf make Bahrain the stopover and Abu Dhabi the destination).

TIP On Star Alliance round the world tickets (which are mileage based) use a combination of Asian (eg Singapore) and European (eg Lufthansa) to visit Abu Dhabi and avoid high mileage wastage of back-tracking. On Oneworld round the world (continent based) tickets you can backtrack with British Airways (limit one visit to Middle East though). In both cases backtracking to Asia is not allowed because Middle East is in IATA TC area 2 and Asia is IATA TC area 3.