ETHIOPIAN RULES THE AFRICAN SKIES
(Posted 19th April 2016)
Ethiopian Airlines is celebrating its 70years of highly successful air transport services to, from and within the continent of Africa.
With its strong mission as the erstwhile Pan-African airline of bringing Africa together and closer to the world, Ethiopian has expanded air connectivity within Africa and with the rest of the world over the last 7 decades. Leading the way in the past, present and the future has the Ethiopian Airlines Group been an aviation technology leader in Africa and has introduced many new aircraft and systems to the continent.
The result of such a long journey of dedicated service has now culminated in connecting 51 cities in Africa with the major trading centers of the world in five continents and 41 cities around the world.
Every single day does the airline operate 240 flights with an efficiently designed network of connectivity through their main hub in Addis Ababa. ET now has 76 aircraft in service, many of them state of the art B787 Dreamliners, the latest B737NG and B777 models and a fleet of state of the art Bombardier turboprop Q440’s.
Along with their Star Alliance partners, Ethiopian is one of three African Star Alliance airlines, they effectively cover the entire world.
The fast, profitable and sustainable growth Ethiopian has registered in the last 10 years has made the airline the largest, most profitable and fastest growing airline on the continent of Africa. Besides passenger services does ET operate Africa’s largest cargo service, the largest and most advanced Aviation Academy and arguably the best MRO services all located at their hub airport in Addis Ababa.
Ethiopian Airlines Group Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Tewolde Gebremariam, said on the occasion of celebrating 70 years of service: ‘Seventy years is a long time, but Ethiopian is still young, strong, forward looking and ready to contribute its own share of an integrated, prosperous and peaceful Africa, driven by its own citizens and representing a dynamic force in the global arena in line with the African Union agenda 2063. The billions of dollars we invested in our modern fleet, aviation infrastructure, human resource development and operating systems are a testimony that shows Ethiopian is positioned in a solid foundation to scale up the growth in its Vision 2025. With the next generation advanced fleet of B-787 Dreamliners, Airbus A-350 and the B-737 MAX, we are very excited to continue to lead the 21st century aviation development in the continent of Africa. Ethiopian airlines employees, the management and the board of Directors have been demonstrating unique levels of dedication and commitment to their airline and this is the main success factor in the last 70 years, we take this opportunity to recognize and thank all of our employees; present and past for their extraordinary hard work and success.
We have been competing and winning every business of our customers in the hyper competitive global airline industry in the last 70 years, and we are prepared to do so now more than ever in the past. We thank our more than 7 million annual passengers for their strong vote of confidence in choosing to fly with us and for their loyalty and support.
Aviation is a cluster of value chain businesses and we would not have achieved such a remarkable success; had it not been for the strong support of our stakeholders; we thank the various airport authorities, civil aviation authorities, travel agencies, tour operators, cargo forwarders in our main hub Addis Ababa and our global destinations, suppliers and partner airlines, the Ethiopian Government and other governments‘.
Words of wisdom from the CEO of one of the very few profit making airlines in Africa over the past few years!
