Flights Between Addis Ababa And Monrovia
Ethiopian Airlines to give ASKY Airlines added oomph
(eTN) - The West African airline, ASKY, in which Ethiopian Airlines (ET) presently holds a 25 percent stake and is involved in its management, maintenance, and systems controls, will receive a boost, as more flights are to be introduced between Addis Ababa and Monrovia.
It was also learned that ET will transfer its own operations in Monrovia to ASKY in order to strengthen the start-up airline, give it wider reach and scope, and more progressively expand into the Western African region, feeding and de-feeding from ET arrivals and departures.
This underscores the importance of the West African market to East Africa’s two leading airlines, Ethiopian and Kenya Airways, both of which pursue a very similar strategy to collect traffic from across Africa and route it via their respective hubs in Nairobi and Addis to final destinations, often in the Middle East, the Far and South East, and also to other African destinations, which are comprehensively covered by the two regional African airline giants.
A major difference continues to be the absence of US-bound flights by Kenya Airways, while for many years, Ethiopian has been cleared to fly to Washington DC, a clear advantage in terms of connectivity for American visitors to Eastern Africa and the rest of the continent.
Comments
Most of the articles on Ethiopian Airlines are written from Uganda or Kenya, where Kenya Airways (KQ) is the dominant operator. My opinion is that readers need to be informed of the overall picture by giving a background on other carriers flying similar routes to the main airline covered in the story ie, competitors.
Even in international aviation conferences, it is difficult to mention KQ without a reference to Ethiopian. And increasingly, Emirates Airlines, with about 20 destinations in Africa, keeps cropping up in business pages of African media, as it does in travel, tourism and airline meetings.
Dear Sirs,
this hit a raw nerve and shows that competition is very stiff and the two do not like each other at all as the staff reply shows ... I like the comparisons between the two and it gives better information what each is up to. And the way Ethiopian was for long it is good they be reminded about competition.
Yours faithfully
Mukasa Fred M.
I can't help but notice how every eTurboNews article about Ethiopian Airlines contains a comparison to Kenya Airways, how Kenya Airways is a competitor, how KQ only lags by a little etc. Am I the only one that is sensing bias towards KQ, or a reminder that KQ is always is in the picture? Is this a way to get people to read the article even when it does not pertain to Kenya Airways?
There is so much more you could have written about Ethiopian in this article, including the fact that it is about to restart flights to Maputo, open new destination to Bangui, is increasing its capacity on many routes, deploying regional/turboprop aircraft to its East African destinations in the evening, almost doubling its existing service etc. As for Asky, it is harmonizing its schedule to that of Ethiopian's flights to Lome, including daily flights to Cotonou, doubled service to Abidjan, numerous flights to Douala and Bamako (its most served city),
An avid reader of eTurboNews, maybe the next article on Ethiopian will be contained to the subject at hand and not have fluff that once again reminds us about the competition.
Post new comment