Ethiopian Airlines Records 29% Revenue Increase

Ethiopian Airlines’ operating revenue has jumped by 29 percent due to a surge in passenger numbers, a senior government official has said.

The operating revenue jumped by 28.6% year on year to 114.6 billion birr ($3.9bn), said Wondafrash Assefa, head of communications at Ethiopia’s Public Enterprise Holding and Administration Agency (PEAA).

PEAA has a supervisory role over public enterprises including Ethiopian Airlines. Wondafrash did not give a reason for the revenue leap, but the airline’s CEO, Tewolde Gebremariam last month told state television that passenger numbers had risen by 14%.

In March, one of the airline’s Boeing planes crashed a few minutes after take-off from Addis Ababa en-route to Nairobi, killing all 157 people on board. That crash and another involving Lion Air two weeks earlier led to the grounding of U.S. plane-maker Boeing’s 737 MAX jets worldwide.