Etihad and AA.
 

Out of curiosity I ended up trawling through the American Airlines booking engine yesterday. Annually I would take 3 to 4 Biz class trips from AUH to the US for work, and for the last 4 years or so I would go on a BA ticket. It's not as convenient, but can be less than half the price. Yesterday however I was looking at options for an upcoming trip to Florida, and despite BA apparently having a sale, it's pricing around AED18K plus. The EY option stays rigidly at around 20K - never changes - and this includes a switch to Jet Blue in JFK. So, I wandered over to AA.com. (I'm BA GGL, but I've never booked with AA, IB or AY - airlines I frequently end up on, even if I've booked a 125 ticket through BA). This shocked me. I was given about 40 different options, almost entirely with EY legs in Business class, to connections at Milan, Rome, Zurich, Barcelona, Heathrow etc. You name it. These were all pricing at between 3060 and 3400 dollars! (Edit: Thats about AED11.2K) Admittedly, some were dreadful routings, but there were good ones there too. Switch dates, same results.

How is this relationship supporting the EY business, in any way? Anyone?

AA and EY are still partners. You can earn AAdvantage miles while flying with EY. AA used to have 3 partners in the Gulf: QR, EY, GF (I think GF is gone).