Ethiopian Dreamliners clock 5,560 flight hours

ETHIOPIAN AIRLINES is pleased to announce that it has successfully integrated its four 787 Dreamliner aircraft into its fleet with record length of non-stop flights and record high daily aircraft utilization in the industry. Since its first delivery in mid-August of last year, Ethiopian has logged 5,560 flight hours with average daily 787 aircraft utilization of 14 hours.

Ethiopian is the first African and the third airline in the world to own and operate the Dreamliner. Since their entry into service, Ethiopian Dreamliners have been performing well bringing the ultimate travel experience to its passengers.

Currently, the four Ethiopian Dreamliners are deployed on regularly scheduled flights to Johannesburg, Washington DC, Toronto, Frankfurt, Beijing, Lusaka and Harare, alternating with its B777-200LRs. In fact, Ethiopian Airlines is the only carrier in the world which has reached the design range capabilities of the Dreamliners by flying the aircraft from Washington DC to Addis Ababa (11,500 km), which is the longest non-stop commercial service in record for the fleet.

“We are pleased with the performance of our Dreamliners. The Dreamliner is a highly capable and safe aircraft, which has enabled Ethiopian to enhance its service. The feedback from our passengers has been overwhelmingly positive and in some instances contributed to higher than expected passenger load factors on the routes it has been deployed,” said Tewolde Gebremariam, CEO of Ethiopian. “However, like any new technology aircraft entering into service, it is normal to encounter some minor bugs here and there which are causing some technical delays in departures as extra time is needed to correct them”, he added.

Ethiopian will receive its 5th Dreamliner in March, 2013. The remaining five Ethiopian Dreamliners will be phased-in in 2014.