South India on Ethiopian radar
Ethiopian Airlines is keen on expanding to other Indian cities such as Chennai, Bengaluru and Ahmedabad.
The
airline currently operates daily flights from Mumbai and Delhi to its base Addis-Ababa in Ethiopia. The carrier also recently launched flights to Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paolo in Brazil from July, operating a Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft on these routes. Talking about the airline’s plans for the Indian market, Tekeba H. Selassie, Regional Director - India Sub Continent, Ethiopian Airlines said, “We also want to increase the number of leisure travellers from India to Ethiopia as we already receive a large number of business travellers. At the moment, we have aver- age load factor of over 75 per cent on our Indian routes.” The airline operates Boeing 767, 777 and 787 aircraft on the Indian routes currently. Selassie added, “We will also focus on promoting the airline as a network carrier to South America in the Indian market through our recently-launched flights to Brazil. Additionally,
Ethiopian Airlines is targetting to operate a minimum of two new sectors every season.”
The addition of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro will bring the number of its international destinations across five continents to 75. Speaking of working with the travel trade, Selassie said, “Our distribution channel in India comprises agencies and GSAs. We will work out new improved marketing strategies for the trade from time to time.”