Fashion Week is well underway having begun on May 15, and this time around the event has its own official airline. The United Arab Emirates’ national airline, Etihad Airways, has signed up to sponsor seventeen of the famous WME/IMG fashion events across the world, including world-renowned fashion weeks in London, Milan, Berlin and New York, a series of events which kicked off on May 15 with Sydney Fashion Week. It’s hard to believe that it’s taken so long for an airline to realize the great opportunity; after all, it makes perfect sense – many of those working in the fashion industry spend plenty of time aboard an aircraft.

Fashion and Flying
During the ready-to-wear women’s collections, simply flying the basic fashion circuit means flying to four different countries twice per year. This is without the addition of menswear and couture, not to mention trips to exotic locations for glossy magazine photoshoots, red-carpet premieres and dress boutiques openings. With models, designers, photographers, editors, hairdressers, makeup artists, producers, sound engineers and others who work in the fashion industry all getting aboard, it’s definitely clear that travel is a huge part of the industry, something which Etihad Airlines has certainly realized and hopes to take advantage of.

Fashion Week Travel
According to IMG, New York Fashion Week alone attracts around 100,000 travelers, all of whom arrive by air. Now, Etihad Airlines wants to be the default option chosen by all of those people looking to travel to Fashion Week events. By sponsoring these world-famous fashion events, the airline is hoping to rack up huge marketing results by attracting everyone who wants a piece of the fashion world. Just look at the social media followings of famous fashion designers and models, and you’ll see just exactly how large those numbers are.

Go-To Airline
Whilst all of this seems like a pretty good deal for Etihad, it’s important to know that up until now, the airline has rarely been considered as the go-to for fashion flyers. As Etihad is well aware, traditionally, fashion flyers tend to opt for the usual suspects such as Air France, American Airways, British Airways and so on when booking their flights. According to Etihad’s vice president of sponsorship Patrick Pierce and IMG’s chief content office Mark Shapiro, the airline has a number of innovative ideas in the works when it comes to changing all of that.

Fashion Flights
Just one of the plans that Etihad are rolling out is a special ‘fashion flight’ with a number of special fashion-related perks on the big travel days and routes between Fashion Week host cities such as London, Milan, and New York. Live-streaming of fashion week shows are expected to be shown in-flight, and deals and offers on items showcased at Fashion Week which you can order from 30,000 feet are just one of the perks expected for the future. Presumably, Etihad Airlines will also be giving their flight attendant uniforms a revamp during Fashion Week to integrate with the theme.

Do you think that Etihad Airlines made the right decision by sponsoring fashion week? Let us know in the comments.