Ethiopian Airlines is planning to expand its operations in Southeast Europe with Balkan markets on its radar. Speaking at the recent New Air Gateway Conference in Ljubljana, Saba Kassaye, Ethiopian Airlines’ Regional Manager for Austria and Eastern Europe, covering Hungary, Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia, Montenegro, and Ukraine, said, “Currently we are using Vienna, Athens, Istanbul and Zurich to cover these markets. We have a big vision, especially for our expansion in Europe and Southeastern Europe. Destination wise, we will have to see but we have a list of countries that we are planning to study and open within the region”. Ms Kassaye added, “We want to connect Africa to the world, and we want to expand outside of Africa. Currently, our expansion is focused on Europe and America and also, of course, within Africa, especially bigger countries. Our strategy is to expand across the world”.
In its Vision 2035 plan, Ethiopian Airlines aims to nearly double its number of destinations to 207; as well as double its fleet to 271. The Star Alliance member does not operate to the former Yugoslav markets but has a General Sales Agent for the region. TAL Aviation covers Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Serbia and Slovenia for Ethiopian Airlines, with its regional office in Belgrade. “Ethiopian Airlines is quite known that they utilise some European cities as a stopover for fifth freedom rights towards the US because of the distance. So, if they would consider Belgrade, we would be very open for cooperation”, Air Serbia’s CEO, Jiri Marek, said.
Demand from former Yugoslav markets to Africa is mainly limited to the Maghreb region and Egypt. Outside of this area, based on point-to-point demand, Belgrade Airport sees the most traffic to Johannesburg, the Seychelles and Zanzibar. From Zagreb, most indirect traffic to Africa outside of the North is headed to Johannesburg, Cape Town and the Seychelles. Similarly, passengers departing Ljubljana for the African continent are mostly headed to Mauritius, Cape Town and the Seychelles. In the case of all three, Turkish Airlines is the main transfer airline to Africa. In Slovenia it holds a 60% share of the Africa bound market, followed by Air France. In Zagreb it handles 29% of all passengers to and from Africa, followed by Qatar Airways, while in Belgrade it holds a 25% share, followed by Lufthansa.
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wow that would be exotic
ReplyDeleteIf they could do ADD-BEG-LAX it would make sense. I think there could be a lot of potential with this route. It's too long to be served non-stop from ADD, and JU currently has no plans on starting this route themselves.
DeleteUnexpected turbulence at Dublin Airport: seven passengers on inaugural flight from Ethiopia claim asylum. It is understood that the passengers disembarked and made their way to Dublin Airport’s immigration gates where they claimed asylum.
DeleteThey reportedly arrived at the desk without ID or travel documentation.
A spokeswoman for Ethiopian Airlines this morning insisted that all passengers on the flight had full legal documents when they boarded in Addis Ababa but said that the airline does not comment on individual cases.
CNN had photographic and other documentary evidence that it said showed weapons had been transported. Some of those photos showed weapons allegedly being loaded in November 2020, following the outbreak of a civil war in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia.
Ethiopian Airlines strongly refuted the claims that its aircraft had been used to transport weaponry, insisting the allegations were “baseless and unfounded”.
CNN reported that it had verified documentary evidence that on at least six occasions, Ethiopian Airlines aircraft were used for such transports.
You are trying to say what exactly?
DeleteAddis Ababa airport is becoming important African hub, because of it's position almost in the middle of the Africa. This is very welcoming because with transiting you can travel to many African airports. Emirates/Qatar are covering only major airports, Turkish covers many airports in Magreb and countries above equator, so there are a lot of opportunities for Ethiopian to connect Europe with southern and central part of Africa. But I don't know how is with their reliance? TK/EK/QR are brilliant here.
DeleteADD is a real s…ink hole airport.The service on ET sucks. The planes are new and extremely filthy. After 11 flights with them I’d rather fly PK,AI or BG.
DeleteIt would make sense to them to fly to ZAG as a Star Alliance member but there is no strong airline for them there so in terms of connections they would offer it would make sense more to fly to BEG.
ReplyDeleteI find it interesting that JU would be happy for them to fly fifth freedom to the US
DeleteMaybe they could do ADD-BEG-YYZ to appease the Canada fans :D
DeleteWhy not? If they for example choose some airport in USA Air Serbia is not interested in, they could fly via BEG and having code share flight with JU.
DeleteOn that way JU would also have more regional passengers filling up Ethiopian planes.
Yeah, good luck with getting fifth freedom to Canada from anywhere. One of the most monopolistic and protected markets in the world.
Delete@9.13 I agree, I think it is a smart idea. Serbia has a Free Sky Agreement with US so I think they could easily get permits for a route to the US.
DeleteIf OU was stronger there could have been several Star Alliance airlines launching long haul flights to Zagreb and them offering regional transfer options. Unfortunately it isn't and we are still waiting for them to schedule one weekly Dubrovnik-Prague that they announced 4 months ago.
DeleteGive OU a chance, they started selling Split-Oslo once a week yesterday!
DeleteTey could fly it in a ADD-ATH-BEG or ZAG route.
DeleteWhen they first started flying ATH the flight was ADD-ATH-SVO.
And then it became just ADD-ATH-ADD.
@10.11 excellent it took them 4 months. Maybe in a month they put the third route on sale.
Delete@ Anonymous10:20
DeleteThat could be a realistic arrangement for them in this region.
Are you sure Serbia - US bilateral would allow for Ethiopian to fly ADD-BEG-LAX? Did you read it?
DeleteI had no idea they fly to Athens! What equipment do they use?
ReplyDeleteThey are currently flying 3x per week with B737 MAX 8
DeleteAegean Airlines even codeshares on their flights.
DeleteGreek tourists to Africa
DeleteThey use 737-8 max in the winter season and 787-9 in the summer season .
Deletewow is there really that much demand?
DeleteAnon 10:00
DeleteΑΤΗ airport had almost 23 million pax last year.
And the Greek aviation market is the 5th largest in the EU.
i'm sure they have demand from anywhere.
Plus Athens is the closest European capital to ADD. It's their shortest flight in Europe so they can fly it with a 737MAX during winter when the demand is softer.
There is demand for ATH they increased flights to 4weekly this summer
DeleteAs a Greek I know this route is mostly preffered by people working in the merchant navy.Greek shiping companies find better prices for their staff than Emirates or Qatar for African and Asian connections.
DeleteAnonymous 10:39
DeleteI think it is used mostly by Ethiopian migrants in Greece.
Interesting facts about traffic between Greece and Ethiopia. Never would have thought.
DeleteThere is historically a strong greek
Deletecommunity in Ethiopia.
DeleteWould be nice. They could offer some great connections and fares to diaspora in South Africa.
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteMaybe that Belgrade-Lagos flight some commentators keep dreaming about happens. Haha jk
ReplyDeleteDo they codeshare with anyone to the region?
ReplyDeletein ex-Yu no. In wider region yes. Aegean and Turkish Airlines
DeleteCan the 737 MAX make it to from Addis to BEG?
ReplyDeleteBEG- Addis is ~4500km, B7373max can fly 6500km
DeletePerfect plane for this kind of route. I don't think it would be a major issue to fill it especially if they have good cooperation with tour operators for places like Seychelles and Zanzibar. Zanzibar is still a hit.
DeleteHow many hours would a flight like that take?
DeleteJust under 6 hours.
DeleteThat's not that bad at all actually. A bit longer than Belgrade-Dubai.
DeletePHX-EWR on United's MAX 8 made the 4h40 pass in an instant
DeleteI find Africa to be really underserved from the region and I think there is some untapped potential.
ReplyDelete+1 Turkish Airlines was smart and now rule the African market with European transfers.
DeleteNo surprise that Turkish Airlines was the number one transfer to Africa.
ReplyDeleteEthiopian Airlines' cargo planes are not so uncommon at BEG.
ReplyDeleteLagos ? :D
ReplyDeleteWhen you look at all ex-Yu countries are poorly connected to Africa.
ReplyDeleteDoubt it will happen.
ReplyDeleteWell Zagreb did have scheduled flights from Kuala Lumpur with Malaysia Airlines for many years. So anything is possible.
DeleteDid those operate Vienna each way or was it a triangle? KUL-VIE-ZAG-KUL?
DeleteThat was a great route. Croatia Airlines and Lauda both codeshared on VIE sector.
DeleteRoute was discontinued because Vienna was cancelled as part of their cost cutting measures.
Deletemany australian croats on those flights back in the day.
DeleteThey discontinued VIE-ZAG much before they discontinued KUL-VIE.
DeleteGood luck.
ReplyDelete. I hope this will eventually materialize
ReplyDeleteAnyone here ever flown with ET?
ReplyDeleteThere are a few trip reports on here. There was a really good one recently from someone that was flying out of Ljubljana.
Deletehttps://www.exyuaviation.com/2022/08/trip-report-from-zambia-to-ljubljana.html
DeleteI have, both in B737 (not max) and B787. I have yet to fly with their A350s
DeleteIf you would fly to a capital city in subsaharan Africa from Europe, then most probably from an Ex-Yu country you would transfer via Istanbul, but if you would travel to a secondary city, then it would be Addis, as they fly to, as some here say about Wizz "to every village".
I know it reeks on predjudice, but for a carrier coming from a poor African country, they are pretty good, and actually comparable to any other major carrier. Have very young fleet, Addis as a hub is pretty good/or at least not worse than other hubs, and so is the board service.
I flew Rome to Lusaka via Addis on 757/767, some 7-8 years ago. Good airline. Good news.
DeleteGreat airline. Flew Addis via Asmara to London and on to NYC. Domestic flights within Ethiopia, too. 70 yrs long history.
DeleteI used to fly to Addis Ababa for work regularly for 4 and a half years... probably half a dozen times a year. Twice with ET, CPH via Stockholm, although we mostly used TK - by far the cheapest option, even in business class. Cheaper than Ethiopian.
DeleteET are however genuinely decent and have become a truly respectable airline, still one of the fastest growing in the industry.
Ethiopia as well, even though still one of the poorest countries in the world, has also been one of the fastest growing economies - basically doubling its GDP and more importantly GDP per capita, between 2010. and 2020. by sustaining annual GDP growth at around 10% for that entire decade. Additionally, they're still continuing to grow, at an even faster rate and not only due to recovery after the pandemic, but with long term potential; building railways, developing light industry mostly geared towards electronics (once the political turmoil in the regions rich in rare minerals calms down, this should be much easier). Furthermore, Ethiopia has the largest water reserves in the continent with great, clean hydroelectric energy potential...this is what I've been involved with.
Another sector with amazing potential is tourism...with the entire country having had only ~ half a million tourists in 2019. Those numbers could easily go into millions and tens of millions.
Turkish dominates.
ReplyDeleteBravo Turcija.
Not surprising considering the number of destinations they serve in Africa.
DeleteDidn't Trade Air have some charters from Ljubljana to Zanzibar a year or two ago?
ReplyDeleteYes, they had one flight in winter 2021.
DeleteDuring Yugo times there used to be quite a lot of African airlines flying to BEG.
ReplyDeleteEven Aeroflot at one point flew Moscow-Belgrade-Algiers-Bamako-Conakry-Accra,
DeleteAnd Adria flew from Ljubljana to the Seychelles via Athens :D
DeleteZambia Airways flew to Nairobi-Lusaka on B707. Air Algeria flew to Algiers on B737, and Libyan Arab Airlines to Tripoli on B727. I don't remember any other african carrier to operate to BEG or any other ex-yu airport on regular basis
DeleteAir Cairo.
DeleteOriginal poster was referring Yugo times. During Yugo times Air Cairo didn't even exist. It was founded 2003.
DeleteIt was not anywhere given that the poster thought on Yugo times.
DeleteMaybe you should learn English, or learn to read before learning English, or if by some miracle you know how to read, and understand the basics of English, then maybe you should be able and willing to look exactly ten lines above my post, were original poster wrote "During Yugo times there used to be quite a lot of African airlines flying to BEG".
DeleteSometimes I wonder what kind of person one must be to have such indolent, ignorant, irresponsible, rude, bloated and lying behaviour and is it worth wasting time talking to such person who are not able to lead conversation but hear or see only what they want
Could they really make a profit in this region?
ReplyDeleteThey seem to be doing fine in Athens.
DeleteWell Athens has a population bigger than all the ex-Yu capitals combined and Greece is a tourist powerhouse.
DeleteActualy ET is Eastern Africa's largest company. Not just airline.
DeleteEthiopians need a visa for the whole of Europe. Even to Serbia which seems to be the most generous with these things.
ReplyDeleteBut no one from ex-Yu needs a visa for Ethiopia.
DeleteActually everybody from Ex-Yu and elsewhere needs a visa to Ethiopia. It is either on arrival (Arfican Union Members) or an e-visa
DeleteOh
DeleteNothing surprising... Many, if not most subsaharan African countries require entry visas. It is a pure formality, where you need to file out a form online or at the border (worst case show a yellow fever vaccination certificate) and pay $50. Good way for revenue for them.
DeleteThe only one of which I know which is still a ridicilous story is South Africa where you need like a bunch of papers and even worse you need to show up in person at a designated embassy. So you need to take your papers and go from e.g Ljubljana to Vienna or Skopje to Athens and apply in person for a south african visa... again, just ridicilous, as they still haven't updated the cold war file. Only western European countries are still allowed visa free enty to South Afria.
If ET flew they couuld easily pick up all the African transfer traffic.
ReplyDeletecould*
DeleteThis would be cool.
ReplyDeleteStrange. Seychelles as one of the destinations with most of indirect traffic in Africa from ZAG. Strange because Croatians don't travel anywhere by plane and there is no demand from ZAG at all to nowhere, not even Berlin 😃
ReplyDeleteYou forgot Stockholm.
Delete😃
DeleteIt literally just lists the three top African destinations without any numbers whatsoever
DeleteOutside of North Africa that is, lol
DeleteYesterday I wrote here a rivaroksaban that Air Serbia should look towards the route to Addis Abeba, as a great link to the rest of Africa, and flight is not that long..and today this article hehe..somebody is reading my mind
ReplyDeleterivaroksaban?
DeleteI don't know how this word jumped in there..Rivoksaban is anticoagulant, fabric name xarelto...Enyways, one more proof something is wrong here hehe..
DeleteDoes anyone know the numbers for African hubs from BEG? I do not have access to the system.
ReplyDeleteBilo bi veom znacajno kad bi se Etiopia Airlines odlucio za buduci Beogradski Hub. Uz Sauth African Airlines, to bi bila prava konekcija. Ukljucujuci otvaranje letova Er Srbije za Egipat i Maroko. To bi bilo veoma zadovoljavajuce umrezenje rastuceg Beogradskog Aerodroma sa Africkim kontinentom.
ReplyDeleteRod. 😀✈🌐🛫
They would be such a fantastic addition.
ReplyDeleteIs there any demand SKP-ADD?
ReplyDeleteThere was an interesting trip report of someone flying to Skopje with Ethiopian
DeleteWtf of course not 🤣
DeleteIt could initially work if their Dash 8 had a longer range. They can always try with a smaller plane first but the Das cannot make it from ADD to SKP.
DeleteIt's interesting that an airline like Ethiopian is so strong and very developed considering the country it is from. No offence intended of course. I think it is impressive.
ReplyDeleteGoogle is your friend. You just need to simply type "GDP per capita Ethiopia" and see the curve. It has increased 10 times during the last almost 18 years. Plus, ET has been developing for a long time and they even surpassed Egyptair that used to be on the top.
DeleteEthiopia had a huge army ages ago, hence a number of jet pilots available. The airline has relied solely on domestic airmen for the past 50 years.
DeleteHope it happens sooner rather than later.
ReplyDeleteex-Yu airports should do more to improve connectivity with Africa. Number of flights are woeful to say the least.
ReplyDeleteI assume the largest diaspora of ex-yugo people in Africa is in South African Republic?
ReplyDeleteYes, there're small communities in Namibia and Botswana as well
DeleteOh come on, we are never going to see ET metal in ex-YU. Code-share is as far as we will go.
ReplyDeleteIt is possible only if there is active codeshare with JU to cover whole region. If focus is only on BEG not a chance..
DeleteIt is possible only if there is active codeshare with JU to cover whole region. If focus is only on BEG not a chance..
DeletePozdrav od Nurnberg
ReplyDeleteYu, to je poznata i jaka zrakoplovna kompanija koja leti za vas i možda trebate znati nešto o ovoj prekrasnoj zemlji. Siguran sam da 80% vremena ne znate gdje je Etiopija i to je wasa prilika i ne slušaj što mediji govore da je to samo politika!!!!
Getting a standard ETH tourist visa few years ago for a MKD passport was almost mission impossible! They insisted using Rome embassy and submiting papers in person! Maybe this has changed recently?
ReplyDeleteFor Ethiopian would be only profitable route to Balkans if they cover 2 destinations with 1 flight, for instance: BEG/ZAG, BEG/LJU, BEG/VCE or ZAG/VCE. They would for sure much easily fill the plane with leisure/diaspora/business travellers. Turkish is using this strategy in many African mid-size airports and it's working really good.
ReplyDelete===> Anonymous16:19
ReplyDeleteHe sounds to be part of TPLF's cyber army, if that is not the case, then a CIA/Anglo-Saxon operative.
The Anglo-Saxons or the West, who were the powers behind the UNPATRIOTIC (to put it mildly) TPLF regime 1991 - 2018 European calendar, are not pleased with the pro-China/Russia direction of the Abiy government, and don't miss any opportunity to attack that government, and this often happens through critic of government owned Ethiopian Airlines, by bringing it in connection with this arms transportation.