Etihad Airways said that it is not in merger talks with UK-based airline BMI, as reported in a British newspaper, a report said.

BMI has 11 per cent of the takeoff and landing slots at London's Heathrow airport.

'There's nothing to that report,' Thomas Clarke, a spokesman for Etihad, was quoted as saying in the Gulf News report.

'The long awaited process of consolidation within the aviation industry is underway and we've had a number of discussions with a variety of carriers around the world, but Etihad Airways has no firm talks planned with any airline or any proposals in the pipeline with any new possible partner,' he added.

'Etihad has a commercial mandate to break even by 2010 and that is the focus within our business,' Clarke said in the statement.