Ethiopian Airlines to launch flights to Los Angeles

By Linus Wamanya and Agencies

The clock is ticking who will be the first to grab first trip to Los Angeles? Ethiopian Airlines will begin 3x weekly Boeing 787-8 flights between Addis Ababa and Los Angeles as of June 2015. The flight will operate westbound on Sundays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and eastbound on Mondays, Thursdays, and Saturdays.

The flight will stop in Dublin in both directions, and most interesting is that they’ll have fifth freedom rights between Dublin and Los Angeles. So if you’d like, you can fly Ethiopian exclusively between Europe and the US now.

A few interesting things to note about Ethiopian’s new flight:

• Both the eastbound and westbound flights are blocked at 20hr30min — that’s a long flight, and given the winds it’s a bit odd that it’s blocked for the same amount of time in both directions

• It’s interesting that the plane sits on the ground in Los Angeles for 14 hours — it could just as easily leave Los Angeles at 11:30AM, get to Dublin at 6:30AM, leave at 7:30AM, and get to Addis Ababa at 6PM, which would lead to much better aircraft utilization

• As far as I know, the Dublin to Los Angeles flight will be the earliest westbound flight between Europe and the US, and the Los Angeles to Dublin flight will be the latest eastbound flight between the US and Europe

• As far as I know, this will be the first transatlantic 787 flight to/from Los Angeles

• Presumably since the flight is routing through Dublin, passengers will use the US pre-clearance facility there — my only thought is that an hour doesn’t seem like enough time for everyone to clear immigration.

true

Ethiopian airlines will pick up some passengers from Dublin. With their current Washington Dulles service, the flight from Addis Ababa to Washington via Dulles in Rome on the outbound previously but the new route will Outbound Dublin from IAD.  It will be a nonstop flight on return. 

Ethiopian Airlines has been around for over 67 years and through the passage of time has grown to become Africa’s biggest airline and undeniable emerging force on the international scene. Its sustained growth has fueled the development of the most comprehensive pan-African route network.

Ethiopian flies to a growing number of destinations throughout Ethiopia, across Africa & on to Europe, the U.S.A, Canada, Asia and the Middle East. Advances in fleet development mirror the Airline’s policy of route expansion. Today, Ethiopian operates a modern fleet that includes Boeing 777, 767, 757, and 737 jets. An on-going fleet enhancement policy also ensures that Ethiopian’s fleet will continue to reflect the latest developments in passenger and cargo aircraft technology. Inline with this policy, Ethiopian has placed a firm order for 10 of the state-of-the-art Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft, the first of which is received from Boeing on August 14, 2012.

About Ethiopian Airlines

Ethiopian Airlines (Ethiopian) is the fastest growing and most profitable airline in Africa. In 2014, IATA ranked Ethiopian as the largest airline in Africa in revenue and profit. In its operations in the past close to seven decades, Ethiopian has been a pioneer of African aviation as an aircraft technology leader providing the first jet service in the continent in 1962, and availing the first African B767 in 1984, the first African B777-200LR in 2010 and the first African and second only to Japan B787 Dreamliner in 2012.

Ethiopian commands the lion share of the pan-African passenger and cargo network operating the youngest and most modern fleet to more than 83 international destinations across five continents. Ethiopian fleet includes ultra-modern and environmentally friendly aircraft such as the Boeing 787, Boeing 777-300ER, Boeing 777-200LR, Boeing 777-200LR Freighter and Bombardier Q-400 with double cabin. In fact, Ethiopian is the first airline in Africa to own and operate these aircraft.