News
Ethiopian woos Mainland passengers
April 27th 2018
Ethiopian Airlines is aiming “to be the most Chinese-friendly airline on the African continent,” the carrier’s managing director, Esayas Woldemariam, has told Xinhua. Read More »
“We have a Chinese help desk here at the hub [in Addis Ababa] for passengers passing through here to Africa and coming back; we have Chinese dedicated staff here; we have Chinese crew on board, we have Chinese food; and we have a Chinese call-centre,” Woldemariam added.
Ethiopian, a Star Alliance member, is understood to be in the final stages of evaluating nonstop flights from its Addis Ababa hub to Chongqing, a municipality in South-Western China with a population of more than 30 million.
Chongqing would be Ethiopian’s fifth destination on the Mainland. It already flies to Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Chengdu and the airline will launch a new route to Shenzhen in June. It also serves Hong Kong daily.
In an earnings report last week, Ethiopian said China was one of its strongest and fastest-growing passenger markets; the airline carries approximately 4,000 Chinese passengers a day.
Yared Berta, Ethiopian’s regional director for China, Mongolia and North Korea, recently said the flag carrier wants to tap the growing passenger and cargo demand between China and Africa, in addition to establishing Ethiopia as a tourism destination for Chinese travellers.
State-controlled Ethiopian Airlines is the African carrier with the largest network to Asia. South African Airways and EGYPTAIR operate but a fraction of the routes served by Ethiopian, even when combined.
