Revealed: Here’s What Ethiopian Airlines Customers Actually Know

This article examines the data on the American passengers, stopping and connecting throughout Africa, who flew Ethiopian Airline in 2019. While the October data are the most impacted by this study, the overall numbers seen from this Airline start at 396,000 US passengers but still allow for many stops.

Ethiopian Airlines: 396,000 US passengers with an average ticket price of $370.

Department of Transportation analysts found that Ethiopian Airlines flew approximately 396,000 passengers to/from the US in 2019. In 2020, the number dropped to 222,000 and in 2021 dropped even further to only 67% of the number from 2019. We can likely expect similar numbers for January 2020-July 2022 – which would have shown nearly 147,000 passengers from January to July 2022.

Where did all of our US-bound passengers go?

According to Ethiopian Airlines, more than four in every ten of its passengers are traveling on a cost-only ticket.

If you categorize P2P as a third category, we had 233,000 passengers (nearly six in ten) who didn’t transit beyond Ethiopia. Six of our top 10 cities were primarily connected to Ethiopian Airlines. They flew with fellow Star Alliance carrier United, and most traveled from Dulles International and Chicago O’Hare International Airport.

Notice the last category. This is where passengers ‘bridge’ two airports/hubs. Ethiopian’s largest bridging destination market, by far, was Minneapolis-Jijiga (Ethiopia), followed by Minneapolis-Hargeisa (Somaliland), Detroit-Djibouti, Columbus-Hargeisa, and Seattle-Asmara (Eritrea). These numbers are also driven by the diaspora.