Ethiopian Airlines now serves New Jersey and New York nine-weekly, its highest frequency yet. On May 29th, it switched JFK’s one-stop from Lomé, Togo, to Abidjan, Cote D’Ivore, reverting to what it had in 2019.
Ethiopian to Newark & JFK
Africa’s largest airline inaugurated Newark in July 2016 and JFK in June 2019. Both are among the world’s busiest long-haul airports. While other aircraft have been used occasionally, they continue to revolve around the 270-seat Boeing 787-8.
The schedule is as follows, with all times local. The same plane, same flight number stopping service from Ethiopia to the US is the definition of a ‘direct’ route, with non-stops on the individual legs.
- Addis Ababa-Lomé-Newark: 08:45-11:15, 12:45-19:45 (Tue, Thu, Fri, Sat, Sun)
- Newark-Lomé-Addis Ababa: 21:45-11:50+1, 13:00-21:25 (Tue, Thu, Fri, Sat, Sun)
- Addis Ababa-Abidjan-JFK: 09:00-12:00, 13:30-20:00 (Mon, Wed, Sat, Sun)
- JFK-Abidjan-Addis Ababa: 22:00-11:35+1, 12:35-21:40 (Mon, Wed, Sat, Sun)
Addis-Lomé-Newark
Covering 7,761 miles (12,491 km) each way, this routing was first served in June 2016. Between May 2018 and June 2019, it had additional flights via Abidjan before again entirely routing via Togo.
Passengers can transit between Newark and multiple destinations in West Africa on flights operated by Ethiopian’s partner ASKY. According to Cirium data, Ethiopian codeshares to 12 places over Lomé, of which Lagos, Accra, Abuja, and Douala are probably the most important. They can also connect to numerous places over Addis, although for many, a two-stop option is less competitive.
Examining booking data suggests that passengers transiting over fellow Star Alliance carrier United’s Newark hub appear less important than might be expected, partly influenced by the arrival time of 19:45.
Addis-Abidjan-JFK
Some 116 miles (180 km) longer than its Newark routing, Addis-Abidjan-JFK covers 7,873 miles (12,670 km). Given the equipment used, I like the ‘787’ bit.
Flying via Abidjan means that Ethiopian does not benefit from the pretty extensive connectivity afforded by ASKY, but cannibalization with Newark reduces. It also serves Washington Dulles via Lomé.
Still, Ethiopian codeshares with Air Côte d’Ivoire to six places via Abidjan in July, including Accra and Lagos. However, the wait time in Abidjan from JFK is often many hours, raising the question of how popular this would be. It is much quicker and more competitive on the way back.
It seems it is happy to offset this by targeting the NY-Abidjan-NY point-to-point market, which booking data shows to have approximately 26,000 passengers in 2019. It is meaningfully larger than Lomé. And, like Newark, passengers can transit from JFK to multiple places over Addis, but, again, with two stops.
Six North American airports
Ethiopian’s North American passenger network is July sees Washington Dulles (10 weekly), Newark (five weekly), Toronto (five weekly), JFK (four weekly), and Atlanta (four weekly). The latter was inaugurated in May.
To overcome Addis Ababa’s high elevation – the airport is at 7,657 feet and more than a mile high – which limits aircraft performance on takeoff, all flights to North America stop en route. Most do so in Dublin. The exceptions are Lomé for Newark, Abidjan for JFK, and Dublin and Lomé for Dulles.
SOURCE: Simple Flying
