Thursday January 21, 2010
Resource Center
Ethiopian Airlines CEO Girma Wake yesterday announced that the carrier placed orders for 10 737-800s this month while achieving a long-sought objective to create a West African hub with the launch of ASKY Airlines, a Lome-based carrier operating a pair of 737s leased from ET.
First flights for the new airline on Jan. 15 were from Lome to Abidjan and Banjul (ATWOnline, Dec. 9, 2009).
The 737-800 orders are listed by Boeing as unidentified on its Orders and Deliveries website. Wake said Ethiopian, which has a fleet of 37 aircraft, now has 45 on order, including eight Q400s to begin delivering in March, five 777-200LRs to begin delivering in November, 10 787s slated to begin arriving in July 2011 and 12 A350s set to begin delivering in 2016.
Following a speech to the International Aviation Club in Washington, Wake told ATWOnline that Ethiopian has a 25% stake in ASKY, which has a diverse ownership spread among individuals and institutions in 11 African countries. Investors comprise the private multinational Ecobank and the major development banks of the region including the Economic Community of West African States, Bank for Investment and Development and West African Development Bank. He said ET has a contract to manage and operate the new airline, which he said will feed passengers into Ethiopian’s network of 74 destinations, including 35 in Africa.
In a wide-ranging speech, Wake said that "African aviation is an area of very, very big opportunities" owing to a largely "untouched" base of potential passengers and growing investment in the continent from Asia, Europe and the US. But he acknowledged the region’s airlines face a number of "challenges," including the high cost of operating at many African airports, underdeveloped infrastructure and "stiff competition" from non-African carriers. He noted that 70% of the traffic between Africa and the rest of the world is carried on non-African airlines.
He also criticized the EU blacklist, stating that it "is not a genuine blacklist" and is at least partially "borne out of competition," explaining, "I have seen carriers whose record is very good who were put on the blacklist [upon attempting to enter European markets]. I’m not saying all the blacklisted carriers are good. Many are not good. . .But at the same time, I don’t think unilateral decisions [regarding carriers’ safety] are good."
He additionally confirmed Ethiopian’s interest in joining Star Alliance (ATWOnline, Dec. 10, 2009) but emphasized to this website that the airline has not been accepted into the group. In explaining his preference for Star over SkyTeam and oneworld, he noted that ET already has a codeshare relationship with Lufthansa and also works closely with Singapore Airlines and United Airlines.
by Perry Flint and Aaron Karp