Ethiopian Airlines is planning to further upgrade its fleet by buying new aircraft from Airbus. Ethiopian Airline is reportedly at the final stages of striking a $1.6 billion deal with European aerospace giant Airbus for the purchase of 20 of its narrow-body A220 jets. This is not the first time Africa’s largest air carrier is looking at purchasing the 100-seat Airbus A220s for its fleet. The airline was considering European jets last year, however, it eventually had decided to go with larger Boeing 737 family aircraft. According to reports, Ethiopian Airlines is facing problems operating large Boeing 737 MAX on long haul flights, as it had to stop off at a second destination on flights from Addis Ababa to cities including Windhoek and Gaborone for refueling. Operating Airbus A220s will allow direct flights with no additional stops. Ever since Boeing’s best-selling 737 MAX jets have been grounded after two deadly crashes earlier this year, Airbus’ profits have been growing exponentially, while Boeing posted its largest-ever quarterly loss in July, calculating the total cost of the 737 MAX crisis at over $8 billion. Ethiopian Airlines suffered the loss of one of its Max jets in a deadly crash in March 2019, the second fatal incident involving the plane model after Indonesia’s Lion Air jet plunged into the Java sea, leading to a global grounding of the aircraft. The dual disasters rocked the aviation industry and developing into one of the worst crises for Boeing in its 103-year history. The agreement is set to be completed by the end of the year. Should the deal go through, it would be the airline’s first order since the crash of its Boeing 737 MAX in March. Earlier this year, Ethiopian Airlines took delivery of the milestone Dash 8-400 aircraft. The aircraft is the 25th Dash 8-400 aircraft delivered to Ethiopian Airlines. Ethiopian operates the youngest and most technologically advanced Fleet in Africa. The airline flies 11 million passengers annually to over 117 destinations and is fact emerging as Africa’s leading aviation company.

Ethiopian Airlines has launched a passenger flight to Bengaluru, India on 27 October 2019. The capital of the Indian state of Karnataka, Bengaluru is dubbed ‘Silicon Valley of India’ and serves as the center of technology and innovation. Commenting on the launch of the service, Group CEO of Ethiopian Airlines, Mr. Tewolde GebreMariam, remarked, “Ethiopian Airlines is a significant player in connecting India and Africa and beyond. The new four weekly flights will connect the important ICT hub city of Bengaluru to the ever-expanding Ethiopian network in addition to our twice daily flights each to the commercial city of Mumbai and the Capital New Delhi. The flights will also complement our existing dedicated freighter flights to/from Bengaluru. The addition of Bengaluru to our Indian network will give wider menu of choices to the fastgrowing air travelers between India and Africa and beyond. The increasing flight frequencies and number of gateways in India will facilitate trade, investment and tourism to/from the Indian subcontinent. The schedule is carefully designed to connect passengers efficiently through our global hub in Addis Ababa with short connections and will provide the fastest and the shortest connections between Bengaluru in southern India and more than 60 destinations in Africa and South America.” Currently, Ethiopian operates passenger flights to Mumbai and New Delhi as well as cargo service to Bengaluru, Ahmedabad, Chennai, Mumbai and New Delhi.