Twenty years ago, if you were taking the temperature of African aviation from the window seats of Nairobi and Addis Ababa, you could have been forgiven for thinking Kenya Airways had already won the argument. KQ was truly “The Pride of Africa” in more than marketing. Along with South African Airways, it was an airline with continental swagger. Operating from a credible hub at Jomo Kenyatta in Nairobi, and with a revenue curve that climbed from roughly $320 million in 2002 to $1 billion in 2011.
In the mid 2000s, Ethiopian Airlines was still years away from its modern myth. Ethiopian had been around for decades, but at this point in history, it was building a quieter and less romantic story. If you look at the difference between the two today, the scoreline has flipped so dramatically it can feel like 2 teams playing completely different sports. Ethiopian has become an $8 billion behemoth flying over 19 million passengers with a fleet of over 150 aircraft, while Kenya Airways, newly profitable on paper after over a decade of loss-making is still structurally impaired and shopping for an equity investor.
Agenda 2010 and the first inflection point
There is a quiet irony in how these two airlines diverged. The gap was not created by one major event or crisis, but by planning. One strategy was grounded in systems and patience. The other was ambitious, debt-heavy, and ultimately misjudged.
Under Girma Wake, Ethiopian Airlines launched Agenda 2010, a five-year strategic plan that sought not just growth, but self-sufficiency. The targets were explicit: expand fleet and destinations, grow cargo, and critically, build internal capabilities in training, maintenance, and ground services. By the end of the plan, Ethiopian had crossed the $1 billion revenue target, becoming the first African airline to do so sustainably.
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