Ethiopian Airlines Celebrates 75 Years
Dublin Airport’s regular nocturnal visitor Ethiopian Airlines celebrated 75 years of flight operations on Thursday. Ethiopian made its maiden international flight on 8th April 1946, to Cairo. Ethiopian kicks off a yearlong celebration under the theme “Celebrating 75 Years of Excellence”.
Speaking on the airlines anniversary, Ethiopian Airlines Group CEO Tewolde GebreMariam said, “As we celebrate 75 years of excellence, we take stock of our accomplishments over three quarters of a century. Among the many firsts introduced by Ethiopian are the first Jet aircraft in Africa, the first East Africa to West Africa scheduled flight, the first airline from the Western Hemisphere to fly to China, the first scheduled service between the capitals of the most populous nations in the world from New Delhi to Beijing, the first airline in Africa to introduce the Boeing 767, Boeing 777-200LR, Boeing 787 Dreamliner and later on the first Airbus A350 to Africa. Today, our industry faces a serious challenge posed by COVID-19. The route we chose to overcome this challenge is to tighten our belt, change the way we do business and be agile. We remain the only commercial airline that hasn’t sought a government bailout and didn’t lay off a single employee. I would like to take this opportunity to cement our commitment to sustainable aviation and continue to work with all stakeholders to enhance Africa’s air connectivity. While congratulating all Ethiopian families, I would like to thank our esteemed customers for their strong vote of confidence, their loyalty and their support.”
Ethiopian Airlines has been a regular visitors to Dublin Airport since May 2015. Initially, with ten transit stops on their westbound transatlantic services. The flights from Addis Ababa arrive in the early morning for a one hour fuel stop and then continue on to Toronto, Chicago or Washington. These flights only stopped off on the westbound leg as the high level of the airport in Addis Ababa incurred restrictions on the departure weight of the aircraft. The eastbound leg of the flights was operated directly to Ethiopia. The airline later introduced a Los Angeles service which allowed for the airline to collect passengers in both directions. When this route was discontinued, Ethiopian Airlines served Dublin as an extension of their Addis Ababa – Madrid route with the aircraft laying over in Dublin for the day prior to the evening return service. This service was later transferred to the Brussels route. The airline has yet to return to Dublin with a regular passenger service since the pandemic. Ethiopian Airlines has also used Dublin for a stop-off when accepting delivery of new aircraft. Their Boeing 737-800 and MAX aircraft have visited Dublin for fuel and crew rest along with two De Havilland Dash8-Q400 aircraft that they took delivery of earlier this year.
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