Ethiopian Airways efficiently weathered the Covid pandemic by shifting its technique, however Africa’s solely worthwhile service nonetheless faces “actual challenges” in sourcing components and staying aggressive at a time of inflation, its CEO instructed AFP.
The 2022-2023 monetary yr ending June 30 “was a really profitable yr,” Mesfin Tasew mentioned in an interview in Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa. “We carried 13.7 million passengers, which is a 57-per cent development in comparison with the earlier yr and 10 per cent greater than pre-Covid. We additionally carried 740,000 tonnes of cargo, which is sort of double pre-Covid,” he mentioned.
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How a lot did Ethiopian airline generate?
The state-owned firm generated $6.1 billion in income, up 20 per cent in comparison with the earlier yr and practically 50 per cent greater than pre-Covid earnings. The airline turned to freight when passenger visitors fell, together with changing a few of its passenger plane to move cargo.
“The figures point out that we’ve totally recovered from the impacts of Covid,” mentioned Mesfin, who was appointed to the job in March 2022. However, he mentioned, the pandemic’s results can nonetheless be felt within the type of “excessive inflation… which interprets into excessive working prices for us (and) excessive gas value.”
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The disruption to the worldwide provide chain attributable to Covid-19 has additionally led to a scarcity of spare components required for repairs. “Typically we’ve issue flying all aeroplanes; we’ve to floor a few of the plane till we get the components”, he mentioned.
He added that he expects the issue to be resolved inside three years, “however at present, it’s a actual problem.” Because the business recovers from coronavirus and extra planes take to the skies, potential overcapacity might result in a fall in airfares, he mentioned.
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The corporate “should re-evaluate its price construction and… work very exhausting on our cost-saving initiative to remain nonetheless aggressive,” he mentioned. Ethiopian Airways can also be dealing with different challenges, together with a lawsuit filed by a rights group that claims the service discriminated in opposition to travellers from the war-scarred area of Tigray.
The airline resumed air hyperlinks between the capital, Addis Ababa and Tigray after a peace deal was signed in November 2022, ending two years of battle between the federal authorities and Tigrayan rebels.
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Mesfin declined to reply any questions associated to the case. The airline has beforehand denied claims that it had transported troopers and weapons to Tigray through the conflict. The controversies haven’t dented the service’s backside line, with Mesfin saying the airline supposed to “attain sure key milestones by 2035”.
What are the aims
The aims embrace growing its annual passenger visitors to over 60 million, increasing its checklist of worldwide locations from 130 to 207 and practically doubling its fleet to 271 planes. The corporate can also be growing a sustainability technique to fulfill the business’s goal of internet zero emissions by 2050, he mentioned.
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“The research to this point point out that greater than 60 per cent of this carbon discount will come from the usage of sustainable aviation gas,” he mentioned. However the restricted availability and excessive price of SAF, which is produced from sources similar to municipal waste and agricultural waste, are main hurdles.
“At the moment it’s twice as costly as jet gas — jet gas at present constitutes for us about 40 per cent of our whole price. If we needed to make use of SAF at (the) present value, our prices could be out of proportion,” he mentioned.
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Moreover, there are solely “a number of (SAF) producers in Europe and the US, none in Africa so far as we all know, so we can not begin (utilizing) it now.” Even so, he remained optimistic that technological advances will at some point allow producers “to provide SAF at a value… which shall be manageable for us.”
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© Agence France-Presse
