DRMumbai: After expanding capacity in both Mumbai and New Delhi sectors in March this year, Ethiopian Airlines, the largest aviation group in Africa, is in the final stages to launch one more entry point to India. “Chennai or Bengaluru are the two candidates”, confirmedTadesseTilahun, Regional Director India Sub Continent, Ethiopian Airlines.
“Studies are ongoing and we will make an announcement any time this summer.“Ahmedabad is also under serious consideration, so it could be a South Indiandestination or Ahmedabad”.
Tilahun is busy planning the logistics of a new group of 50 Rotarians travelling to Ethiopia for the first time. Ethiopian Holidays has been in India for a couple of years now,but of late, it has become aggressive in marketing. Tag teaming with Ethiopian Airlines, the leisure business division is offering attractive packages to lure the Indian outbound traveller. Ethiopia offers wildlife, beaches, history, culture and world-class hospitality. It is transforming into the most democratic nation in Africa with a stable government – ideal for tourism to flourish.
Tilahun said, “From Mumbai, we operate two flights using the B787 and B737 combination. Now we have upgraded both to the B777 extra-wide bodied aircraft. So there is an increase of 200 seats per day from Mumbai into Addis Ababa. In New Delhi, the B737 got upgraded to B767 aircraft adding 150 seats daily. Extra150-200 seats – that’s like introducing a new flight!
Thanks to the additional capacity, the airline has announced very attractive promotional fares to all African destinations, including Johannesburg, Cape Town, Nairobi,Dar Es Salaam, Kigali, Khartoum and Entebbe. These are the cheapest packages available in the market this summer. The upgraded flights from Mumbai and New Delhi will connect well with the new frequency to South Africa (Johannesburg) introduced on March 25. The promo fares come with free hotel accommodation for connections which are not immediate. Those transiting within 6-8 hours have the option of availing free hotel stay with meal or a city tour plus traditional dinner with live cultural performance.
Their fleet size may not be larger than South African Airlines or Kenya Airlines or EgyptAir, but when it comes to financial performance, Ethiopian Airlines book more profit than all other African carriers put together.
In 2017, the national carrier transported eight million passengers globally. This was more than the target set as per the 15-year strategic plan ‘Vision 2025’. “We are mid-way in our ‘Vision 2025’ road map. When we started, we thought the targets would be very difficult to achieve. But surprisingly most targets for 2025 have already been achieved or in some cases we are close to achieving them and may do so in 2-3 years. For eg., we targeted to fly to 100 destinations by 2025. We have already reached that milestone.So our Board is working on 2030 targets”.
Ethiopian Airlines has been adding new destinations every month – Democratic Republic of Congo (2 destinations) and Madagascar (1 destination) were added very recently. It is the first airline to fly to three destinations in Democratic Republic of Congo, five destinations in Nigeria and three destinations in South Africa. Not just in Africa, but around the world, the airline has been expanding at a feverish pace. Flights to Chengdu in China have startedand Schezwan is under study. In June, Geneva will be added to the network plus the fifth entry point in the United States – Chicago.
In 2017, India market grew at 15 per cent in terms of revenue and profit for Ethiopian Airlines though the growth in total passenger uplift was less than 10 per cent. “Globally we are growing 20-22 per cent consistently if you look at the last seven years, thanks to new destinations and capacity expansion”, said Tilahun. “Out of Mumbai last year, 1.5 lakh passengers flew to Ethiopia, of which, 80 per cent were Indians and over 1 lakh travelled out of Delhi”.
Travelling to Ethiopia is easy as Indians enjoy visa on arrival but if one wants to avoid the queue at the airport visa counter, then a tourist / conference visa online takes only four hours to come by. “We have not done much on the promotion and advertising side like some of the Middle East carriers. But our product is superior. Our average fleet age is five years. None of the big carriers in the Middle East or Europe have a fleet this young. Our Business Class has flat beds and the inflight service is world class. Passengers who have experienced our service continue to fly us”.
A few years from now Ethiopian will be celebrating the Golden Jubilee of its presence in India. Most foreign airlines operating in India were not even founded when Ethiopian started flying to India – 47 years of uninterrupted operations. “We are working with the Indian Civil Aviation ministry. This is one of the fastest growing markets and Africa’s fastest growing airline wants to have a bigger play here. So capacity expansion and new destinations in India are on the cards. Hopefully, we will add two new destinations in the next three years.”
