Being the flag carrier of a country doesn't mean the crew are going to get treated any different that someone like Emirates or as you say a low cost airline. At the end of the day any airline wants to get the most out of their crew otherwise their operational costs would be too high. Im an ex Cabin manager from Etihad and we used to do a 4 hr flight to columbo with a 24hr layover, those days are well and trully gone im afraid. Dont be to dishartened though as Etihad had some great trips when I was there such as the Abu dhabi-Brussells-Toronto.