Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 777-300
Taken by Caoimhin McGuinness @emerald_spotter on IG
On the 15th of April, Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 777 landed in Banja Luka International Airport (BNX/LQBK) in Bosnia Herzegovina from Addis Ababa Bole International (ADD/HAAB). The airline operated flight ET3740 to the small Bosnian town and the next day proceeded to fly to Brussels.
Why did Ethiopian Airlines fly to the small town?
There was a lack of medical supplies in Repbulika Sprska, an entity of the country. The flight was made in an effort to triple their available medical supplies in the area. They brought 200 ventilators to Banja Luka according to RTS reports.
The equipment carried by the airline was bought by the Republic Srpska for its health service. The operation was planned a month in advance and was awaiting necessary support from Chinese delivery services.
Information on the airport and airline
It was very unusual to not only see Ethiopian Airlines in the small airport but also to see a wide body Boeing 777F. Only two airlines operate out of the airport. They are Air Serbia and Ryanair. However, Ryanair only begin operations with their Boeing 737-800 in 2018. This has substantially increased the amount of passengers entering the airport. In 2019, the airport saw an increase in 100,000 passengers than the year before thanks to Ryanair.
Air Serbia used their ATR 72s six times per week to connect the town to the Serbian capital, Belgrade.
Ethiopian Airlines was founded on the 21st of December 1945. The started their first operation on the 8th of April 1946 They later got landing rights Aden, Egypt, French Somaliland, Saudi Arabia and Sudan. They proceeded to go on and buy 5 Douglas DC 5s. Now, they codeshare with 28 airlines and at the start of the year they were operating 110 passenger destinations and 17 cargo.
Furthermore, the airline also have a fleet of 125 aircraft. This consists of four Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft. However, these have been grounded since March 2019 since the aircraft had the second fatal crash. The crash occurred on the 10th of March 2019 killing all 157 onboard from 30 different nationalities. This was the second crash of this kind resulting in the grounding of the entire aircraft fleet worldwide.
What Ethiopian Airlines are doing now
Ever since the coronavirus pandemic began, Ethiopian Airlines has seen a drastic drop in travel demand. The airline's CEO, Tewolde Gebremarian announced that the airline has suffered a $550 million loss from January and March. However, he is very adamant that the airline will continue to fly. The airline is 100% state owned, therefore giving hope to the airline's survival.
In March alone, they transported 45,848 tonnes of cargo across the world. They have been using both their 44 freighter aircraft and some of their passenger aircraft. Ethiopian Airlines believes that they can survive on cargo flights alone until early July. Their amount of passenger destinations have now been reduced to 19 with their most popular routes being suspended indefinitely. However, there are still a small number of flights operating to London and Frankfurt.
The airline has increased their cargo flights from 10 at the start of the year to 74. However, is this enough to make up for the losses in reductions of passenger flights? They have been the heart of transport of medical supplies in Africa. The UN World Food Programme (WFP) has even selected Addis Ababa as a humanitarian shipment hub for Africa to transport their medical supplies using the Ethiopian Cargo network. Therefore, it is a very reasonable approach to depend on their cargo flights.
The airline is currently using two of their Boeing 737s and 10 of their Boeing 777-200 aircraft for cargo operations. They are going to focus on their cargo flights from here on out and are hoping to transform some of their 50 remaining aircraft into freighters during this time. It will be fascinating to see how many more destinations will be added to the airlines' cargo operations.
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