Ethiopian to bolster its fleet

This is as the airline looks to bridge a several year gap between early 2025 and deliveries of new aircraft from its current order book, Mesfin Tasew, Group CEO of Ethiopian Airlines told African Aerospace at the delivery ceremony of its first Airbus A350-1000 in Toulouse on November 4.

The airline is also preparing to order up to 10 firm aircraft in the 100-seater category in the coming eight months with the Airbus A220 and Embraer E2 in the running and has a widebody freighter order competition underway as well.

Ethiopian is scheduled to receive all four of its firm A350-1000 orders by March 2025 and the plan is to begin taking delivery of the first of eight Boeing 777-9s from 2027, but that timeline is uncertain.

Ethiopian also has a further 11 A350-900 outstanding orders to add to the 20 aircraft already operating with the airline, however these are delivered from 2027, he said.

This leaves a gap. “This is not OK to sustain our growth strategy. We need new aircraft every year both in the wide and narrow-body category,” explained Tasew. “We need a minimum of four to six widebodies and six to seven narrowbodies.

“The narrowbody is not as critical as the widebody because we have already signed agreements with lessors to get the [Boeing] Max next year. They are relatively available in the market but the widebody is very difficult to get,” said Tasew

While the carrier’s preference is for newer generation Boeing 787-9s and A350-900s so far it has only managed to secure a single 777-300ER. This is a white tail that was undelivered to a previous customer that Ethiopian will accept in December on a six-year lease, he noted.

Ethiopian will soon make a decision on whether to acquire an aircraft in the 100-seat category, said Tasew.

“In our fleet plan we have 70-80 seat turboprops with the Dash 8 Q400, and we have the 150-seater 737. In between we need a 100-seater airplane, either the Airbus A220 or the Embraer E2. We are seriously evaluating these two aircraft.”

Ethiopian has revived the plan to buy a 100-seater which was close to concluding in 2019 but was paused because of the pandemic,” he explained.

On the freighter competition, “our fleet planning engineers are evaluating alternative freighter airplanes, but they have not yet finalised their evaluation,” said Tasew.

Just as it does with its passenger fleet, the carrier needs to add a “few” aircraft every year to its all-cargo fleet, he said. Today it operates a widebody fleet of 10 777Fs and three 767Fs.

Ethiopian has four new 777-300Fs on order. “One was supposed to come in July, but it was postponed to October and now because of the strike at Boeing it is again going to be delayed by a few months. The second will come in the first quarter of next year,” he said.

“We are also going to convert two 777-200LRs into freighters starting in August next year,” said Tasew. The converted passenger aircraft will enter cargo service 6-8 months later.

Another two new 777-300Fs arrive in 2026 but “after that we need to plan,” he noted. The Airbus A350F, 777F and 777-8 Freighter are all candidates for Ethiopian’s next freighter order.

Ethiopian is a prolific Boeing customer with 29 787 family aircraft in service in addition to its 10 777s. In March it selected Boeing’s newest widebody the 777-9 with an order for eight of the type.

The carrier is waiting for revised delivery times for its first 777-9 delivery. “According to the purchase agreement, they are scheduled to be delivered starting in 2027 but recently we heard that Boeing has moved the programme by six months,” said Tasew.

“And we are not sure if that would affect us because the entry to service of the first aircraft was supposed to be next year in 2025, but Boeing has released notice the first aircraft delivery will be pushed by six months and we don't know whether Boeing can still maintain the delivery schedule of our airplanes or will push that by a few months.”