Ethiopian Airlines announces major USA expansion plans for Summer 2019

new Houston services via Lomé

increased frequencies to Washington DC (7-10) and Chicago (3-5)

But Los Angeles gets rightfully suspended due to poor route performance

Source: http://m.digitaljournal.com/pr/4127682

Very bold move announcing IAH. Is ADD a viable connecting hub for African Oil related traffic or is it too much of a detour from those countries?

Must be doing well at ORD to see an increase to 5xs. Hopefully daily by next year, anyone know what their numbers on this route look like? Curious to see its performance, this also brings IAH back to the 6 continent club no?

Sure why not. There's no way any of the North American one stops make any money, outside of IAD which maybe breaks even at best.

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MaverickM11 wrote:

Sure why not. There's no way any of the North American one stops make any money, outside of IAD which maybe breaks even at best.

Given the oil and gas market between Houston and west Africa it’s a better bet than LAX.

LAXdude1023 wrote:

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MaverickM11 wrote:

Sure why not. There's no way any of the North American one stops make any money, outside of IAD which maybe breaks even at best.

Given the oil and gas market between Houston and west Africa it’s a better bet than LAX.

Maybe, but I doubt anyone in the oil and gas industry is going to touch ET with a barge pole

New York also gets increased from 5wk to daily as per the article.

Yes IAH is a no brainer for them versus LAX. Hopefully they end up routing IAH via LOS iso LFW !

MaverickM11 wrote:

LAXdude1023 wrote:

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MaverickM11 wrote:

Sure why not. There's no way any of the North American one stops make any money, outside of IAD which maybe breaks even at best.

Given the oil and gas market between Houston and west Africa it’s a better bet than LAX.

Maybe, but I doubt anyone in the oil and gas industry is going to touch ET with a barge pole

ET is not your typical African state run prestige route operator. Excellent product in both economy and business. Operationally very good. For the Houston flight to be successful arrivals in Lome need to be timed to connect with the daily early afternoon ASKY departures to ACC and LOS. Connecting in Lome is pretty easy too.

kotoka wrote:

MaverickM11 wrote:

LAXdude1023 wrote:

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Given the oil and gas market between Houston and west Africa it’s a better bet than LAX.

Maybe, but I doubt anyone in the oil and gas industry is going to touch ET with a barge pole

ET is not your typical African state run prestige route operator. Excellent product in both economy and business. Operationally very good. For the Houston flight to be successful arrivals in Lome need to be timed to connect with the daily early afternoon ASKY departures to ACC and LOS. Connecting in Lome is pretty easy too.

Product is not the issue. Oil and gas companies likely have contracts to fly specific carriers, like UA + partners on the IAH end, or AF/KL Petroleum club, plus the LFW hub is not much to speak of--BA/AF/KL/UA/LH generally offer much better connections roundtrip than ET's day of week connection over LFW, with larger aircraft that offer much more connecting capacity.

I am not surprised IAD is doing well. It's a Star Alliance hub plus there are a lot of Ethiopians living in the area.

Does Ethiopian have a reliable Star Alliance connection partner in Lome to connect Houston oil traffic to all the points needed in West Africa without making passengers head to ADD and backtrack? That is a very long detour. I think Asky works with them, but are they reliable and will American companies be comfortable booking their employees on Asky?

Maybe AA/Royal Air Maroc could do a DFW-Casablanca flight to connect Texas oil traffic on an all Oneworld itinerary, as Royal Air Maroc is now part of Oneworld. IAH-DFW-CMN-West Africa isn't too bad of an itinerary, but I'm sure the European airlines will still get the lions share of corporate oil traffic with easy, reliable Texas-Europe Hub-West Africa routings.

ET should fly to IAH via LOS iso LFW as they have fifth freedom rights on LOS USA !

The traffic that they can get p2p on LOS IAH LOS (market demand is 60,000 pax round trip annually) alone will be more than double than what they would get via LFW.

IAH Africa market demand is primarily LAD LOS ABV JNB whilst for ACC LBV DLA SSG it is extremely small. Regardless though this new IAH flight via LFW or LOS will hurt in particular EK QR TKs market share on the route.

FYI ET carried nearly 15,000 pax alone in 2017 LOS LFW EWR round trip!

As far as IAD is concerned, these three additional weekly flights are via ABJ-Abidjan which is a sizeable detour plus yields and demand on ABJ-IAD vv are nothing great at all. I would have instead operated the three additional IAD weekly flights via Abuja which has decent p2p traffic demand into Washington DC ie 25,000 pax annually plus high pax yields.

behramjee wrote:

ET should fly to IAH via LOS iso LFW as they have fifth freedom rights on LOS USA !

The traffic that they can get p2p on LOS IAH LOS (market demand is 60,000 pax round trip annually) alone will be more than double than what they would get via LFW.

IAH Africa market demand is primarily LAD LOS ABV JNB whilst for ACC LBV DLA SSG it is extremely small. Regardless though this new IAH flight via LFW or LOS will hurt in particular EK QR TKs market share on the route.

FYI ET carried nearly 15,000 pax alone in 2017 LOS LFW EWR round trip!

As far as IAD is concerned, these three additional weekly flights are via ABJ-Abidjan which is a sizeable detour plus yields and demand on ABJ-IAD vv are nothing great at all. I would have instead operated the three additional IAD weekly flights via Abuja which has decent p2p traffic demand into Washington DC ie 25,000 pax annually plus high pax yields.

ACC or LOS would have made sense, though I Know they applied for rights to fly IAH - ACC, though i guess it wasn't approved oh well, atleast IAH back on with 6 continent club!

bhxalex wrote:

Very bold move announcing IAH. Is ADD a viable connecting hub for African Oil related traffic or is it too much of a detour from those countries?

It stops in Lomé. Nigeria, Ghana, etc are next door. Connections with ASKY lined to ET.

behramjee wrote:

But Los Angeles gets rightfully suspended due to poor route performance
Source: http://m.digitaljournal.com/pr/4127682

It's amusing how people on Airliners.net ideologize the airline business. There nothing either 'rightful' or 'wrongful' about ET's decision to suspend Los Angeles, it's simply their response to unprofitability on the route, if that's the case. Nothing grander than that. If the airline's owning authority wished to run the route at a loss, that'd be their business.

Jim

behramjee wrote:

ET should fly to IAH via LOS iso LFW as they have fifth freedom rights on LOS USA !

Since when? I don't think they do, any evidence of this? The Ethiopia-Nigeria air services agreement isn't the most generous.

LH658 wrote:

behramjee wrote:

ET should fly to IAH via LOS iso LFW as they have fifth freedom rights on LOS USA !

The traffic that they can get p2p on LOS IAH LOS (market demand is 60,000 pax round trip annually) alone will be more than double than what they would get via LFW.

IAH Africa market demand is primarily LAD LOS ABV JNB whilst for ACC LBV DLA SSG it is extremely small. Regardless though this new IAH flight via LFW or LOS will hurt in particular EK QR TKs market share on the route.

FYI ET carried nearly 15,000 pax alone in 2017 LOS LFW EWR round trip!

As far as IAD is concerned, these three additional weekly flights are via ABJ-Abidjan which is a sizeable detour plus yields and demand on ABJ-IAD vv are nothing great at all. I would have instead operated the three additional IAD weekly flights via Abuja which has decent p2p traffic demand into Washington DC ie 25,000 pax annually plus high pax yields.

ACC or LOS would have made sense, though I Know they applied for rights to fly IAH - ACC, though i guess it wasn't approved oh well, atleast IAH back on with 6 continent club!

Yes, the IAH-ACC 5th Freedom application for Ethiopian was approved.....https://newsroom.aviator.aero/ethiopian ... and-texas/

evanb wrote:

behramjee wrote:

ET should fly to IAH via LOS iso LFW as they have fifth freedom rights on LOS USA !

Since when? I don't think they do, any evidence of this? The Ethiopia-Nigeria air services agreement isn't the most generous.

My friend I have worked in Lagos with a big airline for four years in a Senior position and also was part of the the NCAA bilaterals committee who met every six months to discuss the various bilateral applications put forward by airlines to expand or adjust their services to Nigeria.

ET has the right to operate 35 flights per week to Nigeria (as of Winter 2017) including tier 2 cities plus beyond fifth freedom rights to USA plus few West African states. Even KQ has the rights to fly to USA via Nigeria if they wanted to.

However SAA does not have fifth freedom rights from Nigeria and is limited to 10 weekly flights between the two countries.

On a side note, could anyone here tell us how long LAX-LFW-ADD operated? Officially, even if only for a short period of time, LAX joined the Six Continents Club.

On a further side note, that looks to be a very new and very modern looking airport in Lome! Five sets of dual gates - does Togo do "in transit" transfers for those only connecting at LFW? And should this sea-level hub become successful, is the terminal expandable?

Nice, glad they pulled the trigger on this. Lots of money to be made in West Africa, and ASKY will provide plenty of connection opps depending on how they time the flight.

Great to see IAH on the way back to 6 continents and I was a big fan of ET when I lived in DC. Can't wait to try this one.

MaverickM11 wrote:

Maybe, but I doubt anyone in the oil and gas industry is going to touch ET with a barge pole

There's more to oil and gas industry than the super majors like Shell and ExxonMobil. There are lots of small to medium sized companies that don't have corporate contracts with AF/DL/KL, etc. as well as friends and families who wish to travel but are not covered by said corporate contracts.

mfe777 wrote:

Does Ethiopian have a reliable Star Alliance connection partner in Lome to connect Houston oil traffic to all the points needed in West Africa without making passengers head to ADD and backtrack? That is a very long detour. I think Asky works with them, but are they reliable and will American companies be comfortable booking their employees on Asky?
.

Check asky’s route map it pretty much covers all of west and central Africa!

Asky are not the most reliable in terms of punctuality but they are owned & managed by ET. If don’t trust Asky you don’t trust ET full stop!

As for easy/not easy it’s generally not easy to fly to Africa so you got to suck it up!

As for why Lomé instead of Lagos well simple it’s all about feed. There would be no feed at Lagos this what is the point?

Before anyone gets excited about Asky connectivity, look at the failed LAX flight that connected only one-way with Asky forcing an overnight in Lome in the other direction.
From what I understand much of the ET schedule is driven by ADD hub banks, so its been difficult to sync that up with the Lome operation times.

tbboko802 wrote:

LH658 wrote:

behramjee wrote:

ET should fly to IAH via LOS iso LFW as they have fifth freedom rights on LOS USA !

The traffic that they can get p2p on LOS IAH LOS (market demand is 60,000 pax round trip annually) alone will be more than double than what they would get via LFW.

IAH Africa market demand is primarily LAD LOS ABV JNB whilst for ACC LBV DLA SSG it is extremely small. Regardless though this new IAH flight via LFW or LOS will hurt in particular EK QR TKs market share on the route.

FYI ET carried nearly 15,000 pax alone in 2017 LOS LFW EWR round trip!

As far as IAD is concerned, these three additional weekly flights are via ABJ-Abidjan which is a sizeable detour plus yields and demand on ABJ-IAD vv are nothing great at all. I would have instead operated the three additional IAD weekly flights via Abuja which has decent p2p traffic demand into Washington DC ie 25,000 pax annually plus high pax yields.

ACC or LOS would have made sense, though I Know they applied for rights to fly IAH - ACC, though i guess it wasn't approved oh well, atleast IAH back on with 6 continent club!

Yes, the IAH-ACC 5th Freedom application for Ethiopian was approved.....https://newsroom.aviator.aero/ethiopian ... and-texas/

They should have went with this routing instead. Though I guess cause of that other carrier they have ties with in Lome, it makes sense to fly people out of their to surrounding West African Nations.

I am assuming ET tried talk with big companies about operating IAH - ACC or LOS - ADD, though i am sure those guys were loyal to the European or Middleast Carriers, as probably their employees preference. I am sure if they would gotten okay from some big companies they wouldn't have gone with Lome despite the feed, ET serves Nigeria, and Ghana assuming they already have some employees established their to handle such a flight etc. Anyways can't wait to see ET at IAH, will this be with A350 or 787?

behramjee wrote:

Ethiopian Airlines announces major USA expansion plans for Summer 2019

new Houston services via Lomé

increased frequencies to Washington DC (7-10) and Chicago (3-5)

But Los Angeles gets rightfully suspended due to poor route performance

Source: http://m.digitaljournal.com/pr/4127682

The article says ABJ flights will be to JFK is that correct?

YoungDon wrote:

Nice, glad they pulled the trigger on this. Lots of money to be made in West Africa, and ASKY will provide plenty of connection opps depending on how they time the flight.

Great to see IAH on the way back to 6 continents and I was a big fan of ET when I lived in DC. Can't wait to try this one.

As I wrote earlier, the feed + revenue via LFW to IAH wont be comparable one bit to what ET could get if they re-routed it via LOS.

These are actual facts:

LOS-IAH-LOS annual market size 60,000 pax with no nonstop service

IAH-ACC/LBV/DLA/SSG/COO/ABJ/LBV/LFW-IAH combined market size is less than 15,000 pax annually i.e. 4 times less !

behramjee wrote:

YoungDon wrote:

Nice, glad they pulled the trigger on this. Lots of money to be made in West Africa, and ASKY will provide plenty of connection opps depending on how they time the flight.

Great to see IAH on the way back to 6 continents and I was a big fan of ET when I lived in DC. Can't wait to try this one.

As I wrote earlier, the feed + revenue via LFW to IAH wont be comparable one bit to what ET could get if they re-routed it via LOS.

These are actual facts:

LOS-IAH-LOS annual market size 60,000 pax with no nonstop service

IAH-ACC/LBV/DLA/SSG/COO/ABJ/LBV/LFW-IAH combined market size is less than 15,000 pax annually i.e. 4 times less !

You really think ABV, ABJ, ACC, SSJ, are less than 15,000 pax annually? Lot of traffic to those cities on weekly bases, especially in the front cabin. Just fly Lufthansa to SSG in business or first you will be surprised how many people are headed to West Africa.

As I mentioned, I guess ET tried to steer corporate business their way to route a flight via LOS or ACC, and if they were manage to pull some I am sure they would have started it, but, I guess not. Another factor due to AKSY in Lome.

LH658 wrote:

behramjee wrote:

YoungDon wrote:

Nice, glad they pulled the trigger on this. Lots of money to be made in West Africa, and ASKY will provide plenty of connection opps depending on how they time the flight.

Great to see IAH on the way back to 6 continents and I was a big fan of ET when I lived in DC. Can't wait to try this one.

As I wrote earlier, the feed + revenue via LFW to IAH wont be comparable one bit to what ET could get if they re-routed it via LOS.

These are actual facts:

LOS-IAH-LOS annual market size 60,000 pax with no nonstop service

IAH-ACC/LBV/DLA/SSG/COO/ABJ/LBV/LFW-IAH combined market size is less than 15,000 pax annually i.e. 4 times less !

You really think ABV, ABJ, ACC, SSJ, are less than 15,000 pax annually? Lot of traffic to those cities on weekly bases, especially in the front cabin. Just fly Lufthansa to SSG in business or first you will be surprised how many people are headed to West Africa.

As I mentioned, I guess ET tried to steer corporate business their way to route a flight via LOS or ACC, and if they were manage to pull some I am sure they would have started it, but, I guess not. Another factor due to AKSY in Lome.

Just to clear up any doubt, “I am not thinking” as I am providing you actual annual market statistics that is available on multiple passenger data demand software systems.

LH premium cabin flight demand to SSG isn’t all meant for SSG as majority of the passengers are Lagos bound as it’s flown as FRA LOS SSG on a daily basis using an A333.

SSG IAH market demand last year 3600 pax
ACC IAH was 6200 pax
LBV IAH 1000 pax
ABJ IAH 1800 pax
DLA IAH 2600 pax

Have you ever wondered why currently EWR LFW ADD is only flown twice a week (despite having lots of feed opportunities via LFW with KP) instead of the original 5 times weekly when it was launched.

Lastly IAH LOS demand isn’t all oil and gas but rather majority of it is VFR. Oil and Gas provide the high yields no doubt but 70% of the market is still ethnic traffic.

behramjee wrote:

LH658 wrote:

behramjee wrote:

As I wrote earlier, the feed + revenue via LFW to IAH wont be comparable one bit to what ET could get if they re-routed it via LOS.

These are actual facts:

LOS-IAH-LOS annual market size 60,000 pax with no nonstop service

IAH-ACC/LBV/DLA/SSG/COO/ABJ/LBV/LFW-IAH combined market size is less than 15,000 pax annually i.e. 4 times less !

You really think ABV, ABJ, ACC, SSJ, are less than 15,000 pax annually? Lot of traffic to those cities on weekly bases, especially in the front cabin. Just fly Lufthansa to SSG in business or first you will be surprised how many people are headed to West Africa.

As I mentioned, I guess ET tried to steer corporate business their way to route a flight via LOS or ACC, and if they were manage to pull some I am sure they would have started it, but, I guess not. Another factor due to AKSY in Lome.

Just to clear up any doubt, “I am not thinking” as I am providing you actual annual market statistics that is available on multiple passenger data demand software systems.

LH premium cabin flight demand to SSG isn’t all meant for SSG as majority of the passengers are Lagos bound as it’s flown as FRA LOS SSG on a daily basis using an A333.

SSG IAH market demand last year 3600 pax
ACC IAH was 6200 pax
LBV IAH 1000 pax
ABJ IAH 1800 pax
DLA IAH 2600 pax

Have you ever wondered why currently EWR LFW ADD is only flown twice a week (despite having lots of feed opportunities via LFW with KP) instead of the original 5 times weekly when it was launched.

Lastly IAH LOS demand isn’t all oil and gas but rather majority of it is VFR. Oil and Gas provide the high yields no doubt but 70% of the market is still ethnic traffic.

I am aware of LH flight to SSG, though yeah I know one of the biggest Nigerian diaspora in the US, is Houston, so it won't just be all Energy traffic, but also VFR.

In the future, could I consider San Francisco (SFO) as a destination? I think it would be better to fly to SFO than it has to LAX, it seems better strategy to expand to strong Star Alliance Hubs

RainerBoeing777 wrote:

In the future, could I consider San Francisco (SFO) as a destination? I think it would be better to fly to SFO than it has to LAX, it seems better strategy to expand to strong Star Alliance Hubs

No you shouldn’t as SFO lacks the demand volume to Africa which LAX had some what. So if LAX couldn’t sustain itself then SFO has no chance.

I foresee ORD being a poor route performer for them too as it’s mainly low yield VFR traffic on this route whilst at least IAD and IAH will have decent premium.

behramjee wrote:

RainerBoeing777 wrote:

In the future, could I consider San Francisco (SFO) as a destination? I think it would be better to fly to SFO than it has to LAX, it seems better strategy to expand to strong Star Alliance Hubs

No you shouldn’t as SFO lacks the demand volume to Africa which LAX had some what. So if LAX couldn’t sustain itself then SFO has no chance.

I foresee ORD being a poor route performer for them too as it’s mainly low yield VFR traffic on this route whilst at least IAD and IAH will have decent premium.

SFO might just do ok, bigger Star hub and lots of money as well as one of the larger Ethiopian/Eritrean populations in US.

1) Glad to see ORD performing well, the increased frequency in one year is a good sign of operations.
2) Glad to see a well deserved frequency increase on IAD; however, I'm not sure if ABJ is really necessary or the right stop. Time will tell
3) Sad to see LAX leave, but LFW routing was just plain stupid. No surprises
4) EWR was already daily this summer. 4x weekly via LFW and 3x weekly via ABJ, nothing new here. They need to work on making the ABJ flight arrive few hours earlier because EWR arrival and ADD return arrival are both terrible for connections

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I think LA could've had a chance with a routing like this. Timing is for summer

ADD0120 - 0730DUB830 - 1130LAX 77L/359
LAX1620 - 1935+1ADD 77L/359

The times are rough estimates, but here's my rational behind the operation

1) Outbound departs late evening like most other US bound flights, and receives feed from most Africa. Operates via DUB as technical stop due to high elevation (e.g. IAD, YYZ, ORD flights)

2) Return flight is nonstop. This will be a very long flight, however should technically be in the range of the 359 or 77L

3) The return arrives in the evening bank at ADD, but this isn't necessarily bad as ADD has an evening bank to African destinations such as NBO, EBB, JNB, KGL, HRE, LUN, DAR, KRT. Any remaining connections (which would be handful at best, since LAX-West/Central Africa is a minuscule market) can be facilitated the next morning, ET provides free accommodations for long transits.

bfitzflyer wrote:

behramjee wrote:

RainerBoeing777 wrote:

In the future, could I consider San Francisco (SFO) as a destination? I think it would be better to fly to SFO than it has to LAX, it seems better strategy to expand to strong Star Alliance Hubs

No you shouldn’t as SFO lacks the demand volume to Africa which LAX had some what. So if LAX couldn’t sustain itself then SFO has no chance.

I foresee ORD being a poor route performer for them too as it’s mainly low yield VFR traffic on this route whilst at least IAD and IAH will have decent premium.

SFO might just do ok, bigger Star hub and lots of money as well as one of the larger Ethiopian/Eritrean populations in US.

San Francisco has less than 10000 residents from that part of Africa and the Bay Areas African population is small.

iadadd wrote:

1) Glad to see ORD performing well, the increased frequency in one year is a good sign of operations.
2) Glad to see a well deserved frequency increase on IAD; however, I'm not sure if ABJ is really necessary or the right stop. Time will tell
3) Sad to see LAX leave, but LFW routing was just plain stupid. No surprises
4) EWR was already daily this summer. 4x weekly via LFW and 3x weekly via ABJ, nothing new here. They need to work on making the ABJ flight arrive few hours earlier because EWR arrival and ADD return arrival are both terrible for connections

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I think LA could've had a chance with a routing like this. Timing is for summer

ADD0120 - 0730DUB830 - 1130LAX 77L/359
LAX1620 - 1935+1ADD 77L/359

The times are rough estimates, but here's my rational behind the operation

1) Outbound departs late evening like most other US bound flights, and receives feed from most Africa. Operates via DUB as technical stop due to high elevation (e.g. IAD, YYZ, ORD flights)

2) Return flight is nonstop. This will be a very long flight, however should technically be in the range of the 359 or 77L

3) The return arrives in the evening bank at ADD, but this isn't necessarily bad as ADD has an evening bank to African destinations such as NBO, EBB, JNB, KGL, HRE, LUN, DAR, KRT. Any remaining connections (which would be handful at best, since LAX-West/Central Africa is a minuscule market) can be facilitated the next morning, ET provides free accommodations for long transits.

The New York sector will operate daily, the operations will be ADD-ABJ-JFK with three weekly flights and ADD-LFW-EWR with four weekly flights

The Ivory Coast govt has some sort of deal with ET to operate their flights via ABJ to USA hence why you have now both NYC and DC flown in this manner.

Btw does anyone know the bilateral rights ET has for Australia as that is the only gap left in their network.

SYD is a 15:45 hours long flight from ADD whilst MEL is 15:00.

It's times like these that make it very clear to me that Nigeria is not really a country. Nowhere else in the world would a population of 200 million people, not have a national airline for its people. To allow foreign airline carriers carry Nigerian's from Nigeria, abroad; with no plans for a Nigerian national carrier is beyond me. We even have a Nigerian aviation official online proudly pointing out the 5th freedom rights that Nigeria has willingly given away to Ethiopian and other carriers (i guess problem solved in their minds). To simply cite past corruption and poor performance, as reasons for not having a privately held, national airline is cowardly and not owning up to the fact that we got it all wrong!

Amazingly sad!

africawings wrote:

It's times like these that make it very clear to me that Nigeria is not really a country. Nowhere else in the world would a population of 200 million people, not have a national airline for its people. To allow foreign airline carriers carry Nigerian's from Nigeria, abroad; with no plans for a Nigerian national carrier is beyond me. We even have a Nigerian aviation official online proudly pointing out the 5th freedom rights that Nigeria has willingly given away to Ethiopian and other carriers (i guess problem solved in their minds). To simply cite past corruption and poor performance, as reasons for not having a privately held, national airline is cowardly and not owning up to the fact that we got it all wrong!

Amazingly sad!

If you are refering to me being a Nigerian then you are incorrect as am a Canadian citizen.

Secondly, the Nigerian Govt has proven time after time that it is incapable of managing a national carrier due to large scale corruption, nepotism and other issues. That will not change in our lifetime so u just have to accept reality unfortunately. The latest case in point is the comical new national carrier set up that was announced at Farnborough in July 2018 and abandoned in November.

Ghana FYI has the most liberal open skies policy of any African nation including giving fifth freedom traffic rights.

Getting back to the original topic of ET USA expansion, as someone rightly pointed out earlier on, they have some slot issues at EWR hence limiting onward connections. I don’t know if they have a SPA/inter line with JetBlue via JFK though.

RainerBoeing777 wrote:

The New York sector will operate daily, the operations will be ADD-ABJ-JFK with three weekly flights and ADD-LFW-EWR with four weekly flights

Both flights operate to EWR. ET does not fly to JFK

behramjee wrote:

RainerBoeing777 wrote:

In the future, could I consider San Francisco (SFO) as a destination? I think it would be better to fly to SFO than it has to LAX, it seems better strategy to expand to strong Star Alliance Hubs

No you shouldn’t as SFO lacks the demand volume to Africa which LAX had some what. So if LAX couldn’t sustain itself then SFO has no chance.

I foresee ORD being a poor route performer for them too as it’s mainly low yield VFR traffic on this route whilst at least IAD and IAH will have decent premium.

I was surprised that they even did ORD in the first place. Not really that much of a local market for it, at all.

SFO and LAX are two different markets. SFO has a stronger feed-in with partner UA's hub, whereas feed-in at LAX on UA is a lot weaker. SEA also has a fairly large Ethiopian population, too, and SFO would be a good connection opportunity for them.

Freshside3 wrote:

SFO and LAX are two different markets. The S.F. Bay Area has a stronger local market for it. Plus SFO has a stronger feed-in with partner UA's hub, whereas feed-in at LAX on UA is a lot weaker.

LAX is definitely the larger market, but SFO has better feed from that could better support the flight. In the future, ET could open SFO and feed from other West Coast destinations such as LAX, SEA, SAN, LAS (all of which have sizable East African communities)

iadadd wrote:

Freshside3 wrote:

SFO and LAX are two different markets. The S.F. Bay Area has a stronger local market for it. Plus SFO has a stronger feed-in with partner UA's hub, whereas feed-in at LAX on UA is a lot weaker.

LAX is definitely the larger market, but SFO has better feed from that could better support the flight. In the future, ET could open SFO and feed from other West Coast destinations such as LAX, SEA, SAN, LAS (all of which have sizable East African communities)

Why can’t IAD, EWR, ORD, or IAH do that? UA flies to all those cities from those markets.

iadadd wrote:

RainerBoeing777 wrote:

The New York sector will operate daily, the operations will be ADD-ABJ-JFK with three weekly flights and ADD-LFW-EWR with four weekly flights

Both flights operate to EWR. ET does not fly to JFK

Read the article well the sector ADD-ABJ-EWR will change to ADD-ABJ-JFK

behramjee wrote:

Btw does anyone know the bilateral rights ET has for Australia as that is the only gap left in their network.

SYD is a 15:45 hours long flight from ADD whilst MEL is 15:00.

Not a chance in hell to do this nonstop with meaningful payload with the current technology (aircraft). If one stop there's been too much rumour that we down here will only believe it when the first plane touches down.

Michael

behramjee wrote:

ET has the right to operate 35 flights per week to Nigeria (as of Winter 2017) including tier 2 cities plus beyond fifth freedom rights to USA plus few West African states. Even KQ has the rights to fly to USA via Nigeria if they wanted to.

If anyone knows, it would be you behramjee: are you sure about 5th freedom at LOS/ABV for ET? That is something that AFAIK ET would love to take advantage of but does not have.

ET has no choice but to expand outwards as it is truly running out of many attractive expansion options. They have even broken into Cote d'Ivoire much to AF's chagrin, so why slow down? Plus, don't forget, nothing at ET is sacred, they can add/drop/modify at any time...

MaverickM11 wrote:

Sure why not. There's no way any of the North American one stops make any money, outside of IAD which maybe breaks even at best.

You've always been about ET's North American routes and performance, how could they then justify the increase in service especially to ORD and IAD? Those of us that have observed ET for long know that not only is it aggressive, but it's also never shy about pulling out, and pull out it does fast. The resources they allocate to each North American route are considerable in terms of crew and aircraft, and they don't seem to be holding back. They're even making YYZ work, let alone the different paths to EWR that don't meet their bank (with ABJ specifically). To the US, they are not bound by slots or rights they must use (thanks to open skies between USA and Ethiopia) so they could easily scrap unprofitable routes yet they continue to expand.

ETinCaribe wrote:

behramjee wrote:

ET has the right to operate 35 flights per week to Nigeria (as of Winter 2017) including tier 2 cities plus beyond fifth freedom rights to USA plus few West African states. Even KQ has the rights to fly to USA via Nigeria if they wanted to.

If anyone knows, it would be you behramjee: are you sure about 5th freedom at LOS/ABV for ET? That is something that AFAIK ET would love to take advantage of but does not have.

ET has no choice but to expand outwards as it is truly running out of many attractive expansion options. They have even broken into Cote d'Ivoire much to AF's chagrin, so why slow down? Plus, don't forget, nothing at ET is sacred, they can add/drop/modify at any time...

This is what puzzles me. If ET indeed had the rights it would have been all over it including adding frequency to LFW from Nigeria (where ASKY is limited) or go beyond to destinations like NYC, yet it never did. The open skies allows for such service if the intermediate stop's country allows it, yet we see nothing.

LAXdude1023 wrote:

iadadd wrote:

Freshside3 wrote:

SFO and LAX are two different markets. The S.F. Bay Area has a stronger local market for it. Plus SFO has a stronger feed-in with partner UA's hub, whereas feed-in at LAX on UA is a lot weaker.

LAX is definitely the larger market, but SFO has better feed from that could better support the flight. In the future, ET could open SFO and feed from other West Coast destinations such as LAX, SEA, SAN, LAS (all of which have sizable East African communities)

Why can’t IAD, EWR, ORD, or IAH do that? UA flies to all those cities from those markets.

Fair point, but as the airline continues to grow, it would be of strategic importance to have a West Coast destination

Had it been confirmed that ET will be flying out of JFK? Or is that press release, wrong?

This is what puzzles me. If ET indeed had the rights it would have been all over it including adding frequency to LFW from Nigeria (where ASKY is limited) or go beyond to destinations like NYC, yet it never did. The open skies allows for such service if the intermediate stop's country allows it, yet we see nothing.

Sorry but that is an inaccurate statement as for few years ASKY was operating LFW-Nigeria services as follows (all with 5th freedom privileges):

LFW-COO-ABV
LFW-ABV-NIM
LFW-LOS-DLA
LFW-LOS-LBV

They even did LFW-LOS-ABJ for some time before taking it out once HF and W3 became online on this sector.

Had it been confirmed that ET will be flying out of JFK? Or is that press release, wrong?

As per Sabre and Amadeus GDS systems, I am checking July 2019 schedules and it shows daily ADD-EWR only i.e. 4wk via LFW and 3wk via ABJ. The ABJ flight arrives into EWR at 2200 whilst the LFW one does so at 1945.

If anyone knows, it would be you behramjee: are you sure about 5th freedom at LOS/ABV for ET? That is something that AFAIK ET would love to take advantage of but does not have.

Yes ET can fly LOS-USA-LOS with 5th freedom traffic rights if it submits an application for it as could KQ. However to Canada, neither KQ nor ET have 5th freedom rights via Nigeria.

I was surprised that they even did ORD in the first place. Not really that much of a local market for it, at all.

Yes so was I as IAH should have been launched way before ORD and even ABJ-EWR ! ORD definitely is losing heavily for ET.