Ethiopian Airlines is quickly establishing itself as one of Airbus’ widebody customers as the airline received its 19th A350-900 this month.
The widebody Airbus aircraft with registration ET-AZI was received on November 18 and brought 8000kgs of humanitarian aid from Airbus foundation to Ethiopian foundation.
The aircraft has already been deployed on missions to Dubai, Rome and Milan.
As is once again a tradition at the airline, the new A350 was named after flowering plant native to Ethiopia “Adey Abeba”, which symbolizes the end of the rainy season and the start of summer.
In July 2016, the carrier became the first airline to operate the A350 in Africa.
Despite this, the A350 is still outnumbered by the Boeing 787, of which Ethiopian has 26 dreamliners including 19- Boeing B787-8 and 8- Boeing B787-9. The carrier also operates 4- Boeing B777-300ER 6- Boeing B777-200LR for its long-haul services.
In July this year, Ethiopian confirmed that it upgraded four existing Airbus A350-900 orders to the larger A350-1000 variant. Currently, Ethiopian is the 7th largest customer of the A350.
The top 10 A350 operators
| Position | Carrier | A350-900 | A350-1000 | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1º | Singapore Airlines | 61 | 61 | |
| 2º | Qatar | 34 | 19 | 53 |
| 3º | Cathay Pacific | 28 | 17 | 45 |
| 4º | Delta Airlines | 26 | 27 | |
| 5º | Lufthansa | 21 | 21 | |
| 6º | Air China | 20 | 20 | |
| Air France | 20 | 20 | ||
| 8º | Ethiopian Airlines | 19 | 19 | |
| 9º | Finnair | 17 | 17 | |
| 10º | Japan Airlines | 16 | 16 | |
| Top 10 | 261 | 36 | 297 | |
| Total | 437 | 67 | 504 | |
| Share | 59,7% | 53,7% | 58,9% |
