Etihad Airways has taken gold with a new deal to take England’s athletic team to the 2018 Commonwealth Games.
The airline will now fly more than 650 athletes and support staff from Team England to Australia’s Gold Coast for the competition which takes place in April.
James Harrison, general manager for Etihad Airways in the UK, said: “Etihad Airways is proud to be the preferred airline for Team England. The UK market is very important to us.
“We operate to 13 Commonwealth countries and will have flown a record half a million Britons via Abu Dhabi and beyond in 2017.
“The Commonwealth Games will be hugely inspirational and we look forward to helping Team England achieve their dreams in 2018.”
Etihad currently operates 33 connecting flights weekly to Australia from London, Manchester and Edinburgh.
In the past year, the airline has flown over 65,000 passengers from the UK to one of four Australian airports, Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Perth.