• Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 787-8
    Ethiopian Airlines
    IATA/ICAO Code:
    ET/ETH
    Airline Type:
    Full Service Carrier
    Hub(s):
    Addis Ababa Bole International Airport
    Year Founded:
    1945
    Alliance:
    Star Alliance
    CEO:
    Mesfin Tasew Bekele
    Country:
    Ethiopia

On June 1st, Ethiopian Airlines inaugurated its brand-new route between Lomé, the capital of Togo, and Washington Dulles. It is its third US route from Lomé, joining Newark (4x weekly) and JFK (3x weekly).Ethiopian announced Lomé-Dulles just six weeks ago, very little advanced notice for any route, let alone long-haul. Like Newark and JFK, it starts and ends in Addis Ababa, the Star Alliance carrier's hub. Full traffic rights exist between Lomé and the US airports.

Ethiopian's second route to Dulles

Operating on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays, Addis Ababa-Lomé-Washington uses 270-seat B787-8s. The first flight, which, when writing, is in Togo preparing to fly to the US, uses ET-AOQ, delivered to Ethiopian in August 2012. The aircraft arrived in Addis Ababa from Johannesburg at 05:53 before taking off to Togo and Dulles at 09:03.

The schedule is as follows, with all times local:

  • Addis Ababa to Lomé: ET516, 08:50-11:20 (5h 30m block time)
  • Lomé to Washington: ET516, 12:35-19:20 (10h 45m)
  • Washington to Lomé: ET517, 21:15-11:55+1 (10h 40m)
  • Lomé to Addis Ababa: ET517, 12:55-21:20 (5h 25m)

Ethiopian now links Dulles 10x weekly, with this new service supplementing its existing 1x daily Addis Ababa-Washington, which operates outbound via Dublin, mainly using B777-300ERs. It stops in the Irish capital for 45 minutes to refuel because of Addis Ababa's high elevation, limiting take-off performance. When ground time en route is included, it is 45 minutes quicker to fly via Dublin than via Lomé.

Ethiopian Airlines Lome to Washington1
ET516 en route from Lomé to Dulles. It had just passed Dakar, Senegal, for the long oceanic crossing. Image: Flightradar24.

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Why Lomé?

Initially, it seemed that Ethiopian planned to increase flights to Washington from March 2023, so it was brought forward significantly. It was previously expected to operate via Abidjan, the capital of Côte d'Ivoire, located 362 miles (582km) west of Lomé.

Sensibly, it changed to routing via Lomé instead, with passengers able to transit over the Africa airport to/from destinations operated by Ethiopian's partner, ASKY – just as they do for existing Newark and JFK. With about a 90-minute wait in Lomé, Lagos, Accra, Abuja, and Douala are probably the most important markets.

Ethiopian Airlines Lome
The new route, shown in red, is for P2P passengers and those connecting over both Lomé and Addis Ababa, with example destinations shown. There aren't many places available over Addis at the time of day, and it'd be much quicker to reach them using Ethiopian's non-stop from Dulles. Image: GCMap.

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Now 10x weekly to Washington

The Washington D.C. area has the largest Ethiopian diaspora outside the African nation, totaling over 35,000, although the actual figure could be much higher. Accordingly, there is significant point-to-point passenger traffic exceeding 80,000 in 2019, booking data indicates. That is much more P2P traffic than its other North America routes, which rely on transit passengers.

In the second week of June, Ethiopian has 29x weekly (up to 5x daily) departures to North America, as shown below:

  1. Washington Dulles: 10x weekly: 1x daily via Dublin out, non-stop back (B777-300ER and B777-200LR); 3x weekly via Lomé (B787-8)
  2. Chicago O'Hare: 1x daily via Dublin out, non-stop back (B787-8)
  3. Toronto: 5x weekly via Dublin out, non-stop back (A350-900)
  4. Newark: 4x weekly via Lomé (B787-8)
  5. JFK: 3x weekly via Lomé (B787-8)

Have you flown Ethiopian Airlines? Share your experience of its in-flight product and Addis Ababa hub in the comments.