Etihad Airways will lease or buy six Airbus A320s over the next six months to add frequencies throughout the Middle East and feed traffic into its long-haul flights from Abu Dhabi.

Etihad has purchased one A320 from KJ Aviation, a US leasing firm, and two more have been procured from Air Malta, in a short-term 'wet-lease arrangement' where both the aircraft and crew are provided.

The aircraft will join the Etihad fleet in September and October. A further three are expected by the end of the first quarter in 2008, a spokesperson was quoted as saying the UAE’s official news agency WAM..

Etihad is in negotiations with several leasing firms to either buy or lease these planes. Tehran will be the first city to be served with the new plane, followed by Beirut, Dammam, Karachi, Muscat, Bahrain, Cairo, Doha, Kuwait, Amman and Damascus.

Etihad currently has a fleet of 27 wide-body aircraft. In June, it placed a $2.2 billion order for 12 new Airbus planes, including four A340-600s, five A330 passenger aircraft and three A330 freighters.

James Hogan, Etihad Airways' chief executive, was quoted as saying the addition of the 140 seater A320 will allow Etihad to increase the number of flights to Gulf destinations and improves transfer times to its global network.

'Narrow-body aircraft are ideally suited to our growing Middle East and short-haul network and it will allow us to redeploy the wide body aircraft, currently in use on these routes, to our long haul destinations,' he said.

Etihad's first A320 will have two passenger cabins with 120 seats in economy and 20 in business class. - TradeArabia News Service