Review of Etihad Airways flight New York → Abu Dhabi in Economy

introduction

Greetings and welcome to another trip report! We are starting off here at JFK where I'm making a connection from my previous JetBlue flight (which you can find here) from Salt Lake City traveling all the way to Abu Dhabi today. We had a short 2 hour connection here at JFK and we had to switch terminals and check-in again at terminal 4 for our onward flight to AUH. Since this was a trip taken during the pandemic, we needed to get our negative covid tests verified by an agent. 

While taking the tram from terminal 5 where JetBlue operates out of, I came across briefly our 787-9 Dreamliner that we'll soon be boarding on ?.

check-in

I was delighted to be back to international travel as this was my first one since the start of the pandemic last year. Not to mention my first time trying one of the famous gulf carriers which I was very excited about.

Found the check in desks for Etihad Airways and now it's time for document verification and dropping off our bags. While checking my reservation after making my booking I noticed that Etihad had no free seat selection which was a huge bummer so I wasn't sure what seats we'd be getting on these flights. I was traveling with my parents so I was hoping we'd get lucky and be seated together with a window seat. Not only did we get seated together in 20H, J & K but we were also seated in 'Economy Space' section which is Etihad's extra legroom seats. I was quite delighted by the surprise and even made me look forward for the flight even more. 

Things at the check-in desk took a little bit given they had more paperwork to check however we were done and on our way to security check point. 

It was a surprisingly busy evening at security checkpoint and it took us about 30-35 minutes to get airside. 

Double checking the departure board and seeing where our departure gate will be at. 

Some information about my plane:
Flight number: EY 100
 Aircraft: Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner
Registration: A6-BLY
Delivered: March 16, 2019 

Our route for today will take 6,867 mi or 11,052 km and with a flight time of 11hrs and 55 mins. 

Here's our Dreamliner that'll be taking us there.

boarding

Almost immediately boarding started to commence with a huge queue of people already forming. 

We were greeted by two very warm & friendly FA's who directed us across the galley made a right. Here's the view from my seat 20K. 

Here's the view from my seat. Not much to see other then the impressive 787 wing and a bit of those powerful Genx-1b74 engine.

A view of the amazing legroom provided. These seats offer an incredible 36" of pitch. This is more than what the three legacy carriers offer in their extra legroom seats. I could easily get up from my window seat without disturbing the other two people sitting next to me. I'm 5'9" or 176cm for reference.  

At each seat there were a very high quality blanket & pillow in a sealed bag. Also located at each seat were headphones, a small amenity kit & a wellness bag which I'll show in the following pictures:

Here's the wellness kit and it's contents that they had for us at the time of this flight.

One mask

Wipes

Hand sanitizer

Next is the amenity kit.

Ear plugs

And a relatively good quality eye mask.

Next I'll show the seat back contents which consisted of a safety card & air sickness bag.

Here's the touch screen seat controller that looked awfully similar to a PSP back in my old days ?. 

A coat hook as well as a individual universal power outlet are found next to the screen. 

Here's a look at the tray table which was foldable and extendable. 

I should note that Etihad has this cool mini wall headrest feature that almost felt like you had some privacy from your seat neighbor.

A look at the overhead panel. Unfortunately this aircraft did not have individual air vents which I'm seeing as a trend with newer aircraft. 

Boarding is complete and from the looks of it it's a completely full flight.

The travel payer was started followed by the safety video.

Not long after we pushed back on time.

Emirates B777-300ER will be departing for Dubai shortly after us. 

Emirates A380 departing a few ours later after the 777.

takeoff

Lining up on the runway for takeoff.

Bye NY! See you in a few weeks.

I can start to smell the food being prepared in the galley right after takeoff.

dinner service

45 minutes into flight the FA's initiated the service starting first with drinks. For drinks they had tea, coffee, sodas, alcohol & wines. Later followed the meal cart.

For the meal the options were chicken or pasta, I went for the chicken. 

Along with the dinner came with a bread roll… 

A corn salad…

And a chocolate moose…

Here's me devouring the chocolate moose first since I couldn't help myself ?.

Overall the meal was excellent!

By the end of the first meal service we were just about to cross over the Atlantic Ocean.

After the trays were collected, the FA's came by once again with the drink cart to offer more drinks. I went for a coffee.

ife system

After the meal service I took advantage of the IFE system and checked out what Etihad had to offer. I was amazed by the amount of content EY offers in terms of TV shows (from all around the world) and live channels to choose from. Movies on the other hand were a bit disappointing as from what I recall only offered around 80 movies (from around the world). In other words, not a lot of western movies to choose from.

After browsing through the system and seeing that there weren't any movies that interested me, I took a 3-4 hour power nap which were no problem in these very comfortable seats ;). 

I woke up to the sun rising as we flew over Finland.

mid-flight service

I also woke up just in time for the mid-flight service.

This time only one cart came by that included the drinks and snack bags that they were offering. 

Aside from the drink I got, the contents of the bag were a water bottle, a turkey sandwich and Oreo cookies.

After the mid-flight service, I went back to sleep for another 3-4 hours. I was surprisingly very sleepy when taking this flight when normally I'm not ?.

Woke up again while flying over Azerbaijan. What woke me up this time was from the smell of food being prepared in the galley ?.

lunch service

This was the same as with the dinner service. First came the drinks cart later followed by the meal cart. Options for lunch (or dinner perhaps) were chicken or lamb, I again went for the chicken. 

Accompanying the meal was a bread roll…

An orzo salad…

And a water bottle with a KitKat for dessert.

A look at the main meal which was very delicious ??.

After the trays were collected, we had about 1.5 hrs left before reaching Abu Dhabi. 

An hour later the cabin lights were turned on and the FA's were preparing cabin for landing.

Cabin lights changed to the afternoon themed colors which was very calming on the eyes. 

Unfortunately it got dark quite quickly afterwards.

Lights of Abu Dhabi came into view which got me very excited to see ?.

Lining up to land at AUH.

Welcome to Abu Dhabi where we landed safely and on time to the gate. 

One last look at A6-BLY, thanks for the safe journey!

This concludes the trip report, thanks for reading!