East African hub carrier, Ethiopian Airlines is to boost its offering into India this summer as it increases frequencies on the Addis Ababa – Delhi city pair from a single to double daily schedule. This follows a similar growth to a twice daily offering in the Addis Ababa – Mumbai market last winter.

Ethiopian Airlines has been slowly growing its activities in India, where it serves Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi and Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport in Mumbai. It introduced a daily operation on Addis Ababa – Delhi in winter 2009 and currently uses a mix of narrowbody (737-800 and 757-200) and widebodied equipment (767-300) on the route.

The second daily frequency will be launched from March 26, 2016 and will be operated using a Boeing 737-800. The new flight will offer an early evening departure from Addis Ababa (16:00), arriving in Delhi the early hours of the following morning (01:25+1). The return service will operate as a red eye operating through the night with a 02:40 departure from Delhi and 07:10 arrival back in the Ethiopian capital. This will complement the existing last night departure from Africa (23:15) and early morning return from India (09:30).

The addition of the second flight will have a paramount significance in strengthening the growing economic, political, and social relationship of the two countries in particular and the two continents in general, according to Tewolde GebreMariam, Group Chief Executive Officer, Ethiopian Airlines.

“India being one of the strongest economic muscles zooming into the global economic picture, availing more frequencies would catalyse the channelling of investors from both countries and facilitating business,” he said.

An estimated 250,000 passengers a year are flying between India and Ethiopia with almost 90 per cent of the demand in the first half of 2015 taking advantage of Ethiopian Airlines’ pan-African network to connect via Addis Ababa’s Bole International Airport.

The largest connection traffic flows during these six months were to/from Lagos, Lusaka, Nairobi, Entebbe, Kinshasa and Mombasa. In fact, our analysis shows more passengers flew with Ethiopian Airlines between India and Lagos via Addis Ababa than local traffic between India and Ethiopia during the six month period.

The carrier now serves more than 92 international destinations and in the past year has introduced service to Tokyo, Manila, Dublin, Los Angeles, Cape Town, Durban, Gaborone, Yaoundé, and Goma. The new frequency will facilitate more efficient connections to markets such as Hargeisa, Khartoum, Nairobi and some Southern African destinations.