AIRLINES Ethiopian Airlines AHEAD OF THE


Ethiopian Airlines has come a long way during its first 70 years – and it has plenty of groundbreaking plans for the decades to come


WORDS GARY NOAKES A


70th anniversary is a milestone event and since April, Ethiopian Airlines has been


marking what many would consider a momentous aviation achievement. Apart from celebrations in Addis Ababa and all its major markets, two landmark events will highlight just how far the carrier has come since 1946. This month, Ethiopian received its first Airbus A350 while on July 3 it resumes services to New York after a 12-year gap. CEO Tewolde GebreMariam says it does both while remaining the only profitable airline in Africa.


Ethiopian will this year cap the $175


million profits made in 2015, he asserts, pointing out that the carrier’s A350 will be Africa’s first, just as the airline was the launch customer on the continent for the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. The carrier is no plaything for the country’s leaders but seen as a development tool and vital for the connectivity of the continent as a whole. GebreMariam’s plan is for the Star


Alliance member to become a continent- 16 ISSUE 4 ROUTES NEWS 2016 routesonline.com


leading aviation group of seven divisions by 2025, encompassing areas including cargo, third-party maintenance, catering and training.


Visionary airline


Investments in other airlines are part of the Vision 2025 plan, and part of this strategy is Togo’s ASKY Airlines, in which a 40% stake gives the company a presence in West Africa, plus Malawian Airlines, which adds a footprint in the south via a 49% investment. Vision 2025’s target is a near quadrupling


of turnover to $10 billion, with international passenger services providing the biggest slice, followed by cargo, then domestic flights. To reach this target requires a growth rate of 20% a year, which GebreMariam says is “sustainable”. Ethiopian has a track record here,


GebreMariam says, as the airline’s earlier Vision 2010 plan was successful: “We’ve not only achieved all the targets – we’ve exceeded them. We aimed for 90


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