Etihad Airways achieved a new milestone when more than 65,500 flight bookings were made with the Abu Dhabi-based airline.

The figure was the highest number of bookings ever made in a single day with Etihad Airways and exceeded the previous record posted on January 9 by 13 per cent. In addition, passenger bookings from June 14 to 17 were the highest of any four-day period previously experienced by Etihad.

Advance premium cabin bookings for a single day are set to beat previous Etihad records, with nearly 2,900 combined bookings already received for Diamond First and Pearl Business Class flights on June 17.

The most popular overall destinations for travel over the June 14-17 period are Bangkok, Manila, London, Riyadh and Jeddah. Top premium travel destinations also include Paris, Sydney and Frankfurt.

'Etihad Airways is experiencing exceptional demand for flights across our network for this weekend and into the summer. We are delighted to have broken our own records for flights bookings and will look to raise the bar further over the coming months,' Etihad president and chief executive officer James Hogan said. 'The Etihad Airways network and aircraft fleet has expanded greatly in the past 12 months and we are delighted to offer customers flights and world class services to short, medium and long haul destinations. This flight demand will continue to grow and we urge our customers to book their summer travel quickly to avoid disappointment.'

New records have also been set by Etihad's new global media advertising campaign that was launched at the beginning of June.

The 'Why' television commercial has now received more than 876,000 views on YouTube for the English version, and almost 100,000 views for the Arabic version. Overall, the Etihad YouTube channel has now received more than 1.5 million views for all its video content.