Ethiopian is dedicated to supporting the increasing demands from the tourism sector as well as business travel according to the press release. The airline is currently offering flight services to 17 domestic destinations providing the largest domestic network continent.

There are two daily flights to Bahir Dar every day.

Ethiopia has enhanced its domestic service by introducing the new Q-400 NextGen aircraft and the use of the 737 aircraft.
It is to be remembered that in 2010 Ethiopian Airlines purchased 8 Q400 aircraft which were deployed for domestic and regional routes.

Ethiopian Airlines also made a firm order for five Q400 NextGen Bombardier aircraft confirmed Bombardier Aerospace in February.

Three of the five airplanes are to be operated by Ethiopian Airlines affiliate ASKY, the Togolese airlines, while the other two will remain with Ethiopian.

The bombardier aircraft has met all expectations of performance, passenger approval and economical considerations according to Tewolde Gebremariam, Chief Executive Officer of Ethiopian Airlines.

The Q400’s high rate of climb, higher take-off weight, and greater payload was particularly important in view of the high altitude, hot weather airports Ethiopian operates out off said Tewolde Gebremariam.

Source: Ethiopian Airlines

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www.ethsat.com – Ethiopian Satellite Television (ESAT) ESAT is the first independent Ethiopian Satellite Television service and Radio Station who broadcast to Ethiopia and the rest of the world.

www.ethsat.com – Ethiopian Satellite Television (ESAT) ESAT is the first independent Ethiopian Satellite Television service and Radio Station who broadcast to Ethiopia and the rest of the world.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Lawrence, Kan., police are asking for the public’s helping finding a missing 23-year-old man.
Police said Yelekal “Kal” Alemu was last seen Saturday morning. Since then, he has failed to show up for important family meetings, police said.
Alemu’s car was found Saturday evening in rural Douglas County — southeast of Lawrence.
Anyone who has seen Alemu is asked to call the Lawrence Police Department at 785-832-7509.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeQ18sR0yBQ

Source : http://www.kmbc.com

Crying onstage in front of a crowd is not my thing, but a few days ago, as I stood next to Serkalem Fasil, I couldn’t hold back my tears. It was a bittersweet moment because Fasil had just received the prestigious PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award on behalf of her husband, Eskinder Nega.

He faces life in prison on charges of terrorism and incitement to violent revolt after writing an article discussing the implications of the Arab Spring uprising for democracy in Ethiopia. And Nega is not alone in being on the receiving end of an ongoing government crackdown on independent journalists in Ethiopia, many of whom are also being silenced by arrests and imprisonment. Many have fled the country to keep hope (and themselves) alive.

Eskinder Nega and Serkalem Fasil (International Press Institute)
As the emcee for the evening, I was scheduled to make brief remarks and close the evening, but instead I was moved to ask the indulgence of the audience of some 500 writers, editors and publishers. Then I poured out my heart, so full, since this was the first time I had seen Fasil since 2007, when I visited her in Kality Prison, just outside of Addis Ababa.

Kality is where she and her husband, Nega, were then serving time for what the government called terrorism but which was, in fact, an instance in which independent journalists were doing their job reporting the news as honestly as they could. In this case they were reporting on the government’s crackdown on opposition parties in the 2005 parliamentary election in which some 200 opposition supporters were killed, followed by mass arrests of journalists and others not aligned with the government.

Nega was not alone in his criticism of the Ethiopian government. The European Union accused the government of vote rigging, and the Carter Center (on whose board I serve) cited postelection irregularities. I had gone to Addis with two members of the Committee to Protect Journalists, on whose board I also serve, to encourage the government of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi not only to spare the journalists’ lives — since the charge of terrorism carried the death penalty — but also to ask for their release altogether. Read More on The Root.com

http://www.theroot.com/views/fighting-freedom-speech-ethiopia

Ethiopian will be the first African carrier to bring the new-generation Boeing 787 Dreamliner into service in August.

The Dreamliner will be used on the Addis Ababa-Johannesburg route daily, while at night it will travel between Addis and Guangzhou, China’s third-largest city, CEO Tewolde Gebremariam said in an interview in Debre-Zeit, Ethiopia, last week.

Ethiopian’s circumstances could not be more different from those of South African Airways (SAA), which is expected to report a net loss for the financial year to March 31.

SAA, which falls under the Department of Public Enterprises, reported a shaky profit of R782m for the 2011 financial year. A close look at the year-on-year comparison of its income statement shows this is largely due to currency conversion gains. In February, SAA chairwoman Cheryl Carolus told Parliament the airline would need an injection from the government of as much as R6bn.

Ms Carolus argued the money was not another bail-out, which has become a recurring theme at the carrier. The request for between R4bn and R6bn is the latest in a string of handouts for which the airline has approached the state. In 2009 it received an injection of R1,6bn after asking for R5,2bn from the Treasury.

Two years before that, SAA received R1,3bn. SAA famously lost R6bn on fuel hedges in 2003. The government was later required to provide it with R7bn in guarantees and its former parent company, Transnet, gave it a cash injection of R6,1bn to keep the airline solvent.

The department has argued SAA has never been adequately capitalised to the extent that it is able to compete commercially.

While Ethiopian has an advantage over SAA because of its position on the Horn of Africa, it faces the same problems of high oil prices, the continued dominance of Gulf carriers such as Emirates and Etihad, and depressed economic conditions.

SA is a long-haul destination, which counts against it due to the amount of fuel it must burn.

Ethiopian, by contrast, is building on its location, where traffic between Asia, Africa and Brazil intersects. New destinations are being introduced to maximise the benefit of the hub service it operates out of Addis Ababa. It will start its service to São Paulo in December.

“If you draw a line between India, Brazil and Africa, we are in the middle. We have to take advantage of that and grow our market in order to survive,” Mr Gebremariam said.

The government has been clear that the airline will not get any government money and has to run as a commercial concern. To meet its vision of “fast, profitable and sustainable growth”, Mr Gebremariam said Ethiopian had a “heavy order book”.

Over the next three to five years it plans to take delivery of 10 Dreamliners, with the first set for August and four more next year. The “ticket price” of each Dreamliner is $100m. Funding is coming from internal sources and “partly from the banks”, Mr Gebremariam said.

The International Air Transport Association, which represents the bulk of the world’s airline industry, forecast in March that African airlines would post a cumulative $100m loss this year. Globally, the industry is expected to have a net profit margin of 0,6% as a result of the higher fuel prices and depressed demand.

Ethiopian is also buying six Boeing 777 freight carriers, 10 737-800s, five Bombardier Q400s and has 12 Airbus A350 wide-body, long-range carriers on order. Delivery of these will start in 2017.

“We have to run like a private enterprise. Our growth must be fast to capture the opportunity of the new markets, but it must also be profitable and sustainable so that we can pay the banks,” Mr Gebremariam said.

smithn@bdfm.co.za

www.ethsat.com – Ethiopian Satellite Television (ESAT) ESAT is the first independent Ethiopian Satellite Television service and Radio Station who broadcast to Ethiopia and the rest of the world.

www.ethsat.com – Ethiopian Satellite Television (ESAT) ESAT is the first independent Ethiopian Satellite Television service and Radio Station who broadcast to Ethiopia and the rest of the world.