Ethiopian Airlines flights returns to pre-cOVID levels in March

Passengers of a flight from China wait in a line for checking their COVID-19 vaccination documents as a preventive measure against the Covid-19 coronavirus, after arriving at the Paris-Charles-de-Gaulle airport in Roissy, outside Paris, on January 1, 2023. – France and Britain on December 30 joined a growing list of nations imposing Covid tests on travelers from China, after Beijing dropped foreign travel curbs despite surging cases — and amid questions about its data reporting. (Photo by JULIEN DE ROSA / AFP)

Ethiopian Airlines has announced that the frequency with which its flights move to Chinese cities would increase by February 6, 2023 and return to the pre-COVID-19 position by March 1, 2023, following the lifting of restrictions by the Chinese government.

With this new development, Ethiopian Airlines will operate daily flights to Guangzhou while increasing its weekly flights to Beijing and Shanghai to and fro each, maintaining the thrice operation to Chengdu weekly.

Starting from March 1, the flights would surge back to the pre-COVID19 levels with daily flights to Beijing and Shanghai as well as 10 and four weekly flights to Guangzhou and Chengdu respectively. Accordingly, Ethiopian will operate a total of 28 weekly passenger flights to China when the services are fully restored.

On increasing flight’s frequencies, Ethiopian Group CEO, Mesfin Tasew, said, “We are glad that we are ramping up the frequencies of our flights to Chinese cities; thanks to the easing of flight restrictions by the Government of China. China is one of the largest markets for Ethiopian Airlines outside Africa, and the increase in flight frequency will help revive the trade, investment, cultural and bilateral cooperation between Africa and China in the post-COVID era. Based on our large network across Africa, the increase in the number of flights to Chinese cities will bring Africa and China closer. We are keen to further expand our service to China going forward.”

In addition to its passenger flights to Guangzhou, Shanghai, Beijing and Chengdu, Ethiopian is also operating freighter flights to Guangzhou, Shanghai, Zhengzhou, Changsha and Wuhan.