(Posted 04th September 2024)
The dictatorship in Eritrea seems to have taken their hostility against Ethiopia and Ethiopian Airlines to yet another level, after the regime reportedly froze Ethiopian Airlines’ bank account.
Such moves are in violation of relevant aviation agreements and it appears that both ICAO and ITTA ar set to intervene – a move seen by aviation observers as almost futile as the regime in Asmara is known to break international rules of this kind at will.
The account freeze prompted the airline to halt all flights to Eritrea immediately and the decicion als shook those airlines still flying to Asmara equally, now quietly reviewing their own options of being able to run their business unimpeded and being able to repatriate their sales income.
The flight suspension came way before the deadline set two months ago by Eritrea, which had wanted Ethiopian Airlines to stop flights over a range of unsubstantiated allegations, which aviation pundits rejected out of hand for being fake and fictitious.
Flights between Addis Ababa and Asmara were only restored in 2018 after a peace deal was agreed between the two countries and relations improved for some time before the Asmara regime began to reverse course and eventually showed open hostility again.
Eritreans and the few visitors to the country are now left with few choices if they were booked to fly via Addis to Asmara and few other airlines serve the increasingly isolated country.
