Etihad changes allowance rules- Who Gained, Who Lost?

Etihad, the Abu Dhabi flag carrier, has again changed its baggage allowance rules. Moving away from the piece-based system of allowance for almost all of its routes except for United States and Canada, it has embraced the weight-based system yet again.

The new rules will be applicable for tickets bought after 31 January, 2018. For the ticket bought before this date, the old policy will continue. The minimum allowance for piece based system was 1 bag of 23 kg, and this will be replaced with a minimum allowance of 30 kg for most of the routes. With this shift in Etihad baggage allowance policy, let us examine, who will be carrying more allowance and who will take less?

For people travelling from/to South America and Bermuda, the allowance will now be as per the General Policy (minimum 23 kg for Deal fare tickets). This will be a loss since earlier the allowance was 2 bags of 23 kg or 47 kgs in total.

Traveller flying to or from Africa earlier used to take 2 bags of 23 kg each as a minimum allowance. This has now changed. Etihad has re-jiged the allowance by providing 40 kg allowance for people travelling out of African countries on Economy and Business class flights. 

For flights to Africa, it has divided into two parts- those arriving from GCC, Lebanon and Jordan and those arriving from India, Pakistan, China, Japan, Hong Kong and Australia. The former are allowed 40kg as minimum allowance whereas it is 30 kg for the latter. 

Earlier, people travelling to/from UK from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh could carry at least 2 bags of 23 kg as allowance, now all flights from Europe to India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Philippines will get only 30 kg as minimum allowance. On flights from these destinations to some European countries would be minimum 30 kg.

Specific mention has been made of three flight segments. 

a. From India and Pakistan to Australia- minimum 30 kg allowance

b. From Italy to China- minimum 30 kg allowance

c. Between UAE, Bahrain and Kuwait- Only Hand baggage allowed in Deals fare ticket. 

Even the General Policy which would cover all other routes which have not been mentioned has been changed from piece-based to weight-based.