The future for African air transport: Learning from Ethiopian Airlines

Abstract

The African air transport market has been a laggard in development, remaining encircled by a plethora of problematic issues that has curtailed its expansion and prosperity for decades. Regulatory restrictions, protectionism, inadequate infrastructure and prolonged loss making periods are regularly correlated with the plights of African carriers. Ethiopian Airlines is disrupting this negative manifestation and is exponentially expanding its African and international network footprint, enshrined in continuous profitability. The research quantifies that it is Africa's most successful airline through a POA analysis by aggregating a series of pertinent airline indices to derive its prominence from among its peers. Three key pillars were deduced that specifically correlated with Ethiopian Airlines continued prosperity and can be used as a template, which included a large intra-African network, a strong hub with multiple wave permutations for onward connecting traffic and forging deep strategic partnerships with regional based African carriers.