By Chinelo Obogo, [email protected]
At a recent meeting with Airline Operators of Nigeria (AON) and the Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Festus Keyamo, Nigerian airlines operators urged the Federal Government to carry out sweeping reforms in the aviation sector including the cancellation of eight and ninth ‘freedom of free’ flights by foreign airlines into Nigeria. The AON said some foreign airlines operating in the country have a dispensation to operate cabotage that gives them undue competitive advantage in the domestic market, to reduce the market size and increase the failure of domestic airlines.
But the Group Chief Executive Officer of Ethiopian Airlines, Mr Mesfin Tasew, who met with Nigerian aviation reporters in Addis Ababa, recently, disagreed with the suggestions of the domestic airlines. He said if the Federal Government cancels multiple destinations, it is the Nigerian people that will suffer for it. He also speaks on other wide ranging issues.
How Ethiopian Airline started
Ethiopian Airlines was established in 1945 and had its first flight to Cairo in 1946. So we have been in operation over the last 77 years. Through this period, we have been growing consistently, both in good and difficult times.
Today, we have a very big international network covering 133 international destinations in Africa, Europe, Asia, North and Latin America. We haven’t yet started flying to Australia, but that is on our radar.
Out of these 133 destinations, 63 are in Africa. In addition to this international network, we fly to 22 cities within Ethiopia. We have 22 airports and five more are under construction, to be completed within a year.
This means our domestic destination will reach 27 by end of 2024.
In parallel with expanding our network, our destinations, we have been acquiring new generation airplanes from the major aircraft manufacturers.
Today we have 145 aircraft from the smallest turboprop to the largest 400-seater aircraft. We have around 18,000 permanent employees composed of 1,400 pilots, over 3,000 cabin crew, over 2,000 aircraft technicians, sales, marketing, procurement, finance, and all other supporting divisions.
All our technicians, cabin crew were trained in our own university. So, we are self-sufficient in developing our human resource, particularly the aviation professionals.
We also have a big cargo facility built in two phases. Phase one was built in 2006 and phase two was commissioned just before COVID. This facility has the capacity to handle over one million tons of cargo per year and it is owned by Ethiopian Airlines.
In addition to that, we have a state-of-the-art in-flight catering facility with the capacity of producing over 100,000 meals per day. Ethiopian Airlines is run not as an airline but as an aviation group, which includes the airline, an MRO, training, catering and other facilities. In addition to the airports in which we invested over $350 million to upgrade, we have built Skylight hotel which has a capacity of over 1,000 rooms. I am telling you this to explain to you that Ethiopian Airlines growth is not only by buying airplanes and flying them. It is supported by huge investment in the development of infrastructure as well, which serves us as a backbone for our growth and expansion.
Our performance
Our fiscal year begins July 1 and ends on 30th of June and during this fiscal year that ended last June, we made very remarkable performance. We carried 13.9 million passengers in one year, which is 14 per cent higher than pre-COVID, we carried over 716,000 tons of cargo using 14 dedicated freighter aircraft. We expanded our network, generated a total revenue of $6.1 billion and profit of over $800 million. So, it was a very successful year for us. We have a 15-year long term strategy which outlines where Ethiopian Airlines has to be by 2035.
This year, we wanted to carry or transport 18 million people, which would be over 40 per cent growth from last year and we also wanted to also carry over 820,000 tons of cargo. We have a plan to generate $7.3 billion, which will be 20 per cent higher than last year.
Establishing national carriers for African countries
We have been helping African countries to establish their own airlines. You must know very well about Asky Airlines.
In 2010, we partnered with three banks in West Africa and a few other investors to set up a Togolese national airline. This airline passed through long years of development, and today they are operating fifteen 737 aircraft, including the MAX, connecting more than 25 cities in West Africa on a daily basis.
From those cities, any African can take Asky Airlines, pass through Lome and reach its destination in the afternoon. In the past, these people used to travel to Europe and come back through Air France or British Airways or other carriers.
Now, Asky is playing a significant role within West and Central Africa and Ethiopian Airlines has played an important role in developing this airline. Last year alone, Asky made a profit of 30 million dollars and the year before that, it made a profit of over 12 million. Even when several airlines in Africa were still struggling. Asky made a profit.
Take Malawi Airlines. It’s a relatively small airline. It was set up under partnership between the Malawi government and the Ethiopian Airlines. Now for the last two years it was making profit. Recently we set up another airline in Zambia. It is a baby airline. Now they are growing.
So, Ethiopian Airlines is helping countries who want to have their national carriers through partnership. And these are success stories.
ET’s contribution to Nigeria
You may be interested to know what did Ethiopian airlines contributed to Nigeria. The first one is we have been providing an alternate air transport service to Nigerians, connecting Nigeria to the rest of the world. We started flying to Nigeria in 1960 which is 63 years of uninterrupted continuous service.
Connecting Lagos with the rest of the world, using wide-body airplanes, like the 777 aircraft. Nigerians use our service to go to Europe, even to Europe, while they can fly directly using other airlines. Several Nigerians prefer to fly to Ethiopian to come to Addis, and go to Europe. But the significant Nigerian traffic is between Nigeria and Dubai, Nigeria and China, Nigeria and India, the biggest traffic is there.
Last year alone, we carried over 511,000 Nigerians. Our Lagos flight is daily, the Kano flight is six flights per week and we fly to Abuja daily using the Airbus A350 or the 787 aircraft, which are modern airplanes.
We expanded our reach into Nigeria based on the request of the people and the last addition was in Enugu. Ethiopian Airlines didn’t ask the Nigerian authorities to fly to Enugu. The question came from the Nigerian government to start flying to Enugu because there were no international airlines connecting Enugu and passengers used to come to Lagos or other cities to connect to the rest of the world. So, at the time, I remember some ministers in Nigeria came to Ethiopian Airlines and said, can you please start flying to Enugu? We thought that, are we going to get enough traffic from Enugu? Will the operation be profitable? But the Nigerian authorities insisted, they urged us that you have to fly. So, then we started flying there with small size airplanes because there was no traffic and we used to operate that route at loss. But over time, the Nigerians got used to that flight and now we are operating with wide body aircraft. It has a good traffic. We are providing a convenient air transport service to the people around Enugu. If we stop flying there, what will happen? These people will have to take another flight to go to another city to take international flight. So, for passenger operation already we fly 24 flights per week.
Controversy over multiple destinations to foreign airlines
In my opinion, if multiple destinations for foreign airlines are stopped, it will be against the interest of the Nigerian public. If the Nigerian government tells us don’t fly to Enugu, for example, then what does it mean? The Nigerian government is telling the people you cannot fly directly from Enugu to Dubai. First you have to go to Abuja before flying Abuja to Dubai. The cost to the Nigerian public will increase, the time it takes will increase. So, it will be against the interest of the Nigerian public. For us, Nigeria is a sovereign country, we respect whatever the government decides. But I don’t think it is a good idea. In all civilised countries, airlines fly to multiple destinations. Take the United States with 50 states. Today, we fly to five cities in the US and they didn’t say, no, you fly only to Washington and then the domestic airlines will bring the passengers. That is not good for the public in terms of cost, time and convenience. So, I don’t think it is a wise idea, but we leave the decision to the Nigerian government.
Aviation in Africa
Ethiopian Airlines has played an instrumental role in the development of the aviation industry in Africa. When the African Union was established in Addis Ababa, it was Ethiopian Airlines that brought most of the African leaders to attend the meeting and form the African Union. It started from there. We have been developing our roots in Africa, first to connect Africans to the rest of the world, to the Middle East, to Asia, Europe, North America and now Latin America as well.
Now, the African Union has developed several initiatives to help Africans grow together under different initiatives and one of them is African Free Continental Free Trade Area and that means African Union want Africans to interact more, to do more business and among themselves instead of relying on Europeans or other countries outside Africa. We have demonstrated that Africans can do what the rest of the world can do. If we do the right things, we can do whatever the other countries can do. It is with this spirit that we have been expanding the air transport industry in Africa.
Another area is maintenance of airlines. In Africa we don’t have enough MROs.
Even Nigeria, the biggest nation in our continent doesn’t have a dependable MRO facility. Using our MRO facility, we have been repairing the airplanes of airlines from all corners of Africa including Nigeria. Today, we are repairing aircraft of Air Peace and Arik Air in our facility. During the last several years, we repaired 30 aircraft only from Nigeria. This is a support, otherwise, they could take their aircraft to Europe, where it is very expensive.
We carry a lot of cargo between Lagos and the rest of the world. We bring cargo from Asia to Nigeria, sometimes nine flights per week, wide-body, the triple-seven freight aircraft. During COVID, when all airlines grounded their aircraft, it was Ethiopian airlines that carried masks, COVID test kit, vaccines from China to Africa including Nigeria. We believe with that operation, we saved the lives of maybe millions of people in Africa, because it was not only Nigeria, but we were carrying all these medical supplies to the whole of Africa.