Aviation and African politics, two of my pet interests! Let me add some color to why Ethiopian is successful from a business point of view:
1) They very early on identified that Africa-China travel and trade was going to boom, and from the late 2000s started building up their network and sales distribution in China. ET flies to more Chinese cities than basically any other non-Asian airline. They dominate Africa-China corridors in both directions with both passengers and freight. They've since started building up in the Gulf as migration and trade links with the continent grow - basically, wherever Africans want to go, ET serves.
2) They leverage network effects to their maximum extent. Bole Airport is so busy precisely because ET schedules all of its flights to land and take off at the same time to maximize connections. Often that makes ET the only 1-stop option between many city pairs. They run Asky the same way - everyone arrives in Lome around the same time, everyone takes off between 1 and 2 hours later. No other African airline matches their operational discipline. Uganda Airlines, for example, has mostly random timings and odd 4 or 6 hour connection windows, so they are really only competitive with Ugandan passengers on direct flights, not connecting passengers.
Finally I think there are some factors to the rise of low-cost airlines in the West that are of interest to political scientists. Ryanair pioneered low-cost airlines that fly to secondary airports far from city centers - those airports were mainly disused military airfields from WWII that shifted to civilian control post-Cold War. Those airports offered lower taxes / fees (or acquiesced to Ryanair's demand for them) to attract more carriers - which drove down prices. Most African countries have never had to build infrastructure to fight air wars, and manage airports from a central national authority - which doesn't incentivize an enterprising local manager to build up low-cost services to an airport. Another case of wars make states...
I once booked a short Uganda Airlines flight where the ticketing process made it seem like no pieces of luggage were included. I added it for an extortionary $100 (on a $400 flight) but then the ticket itself said this $100 was for a third bag (which I did not need). Getting this charge taken off proved impossible as I was bounced between individuals who took weeks to answer and were not empowered to do anything by their software. Such is life.
Ethiopian has been good to me for 10+ years, however. I expect them to become the Turkish Airlines of Africa in 20 years.
Oh, this article hits all the thoughts and feels around air travel in Madagascar. Right now an internal flight of less than 1.5 hours costs 2 million Ariary about $450 USD!!! And we haven’t even left the country! Last I heard Air Madagascar had something like 800 employees for 7 or 8 airplanes…
Anecdotally, Ethiopian Airlines is one of my favorite airlines to fly from a service and price perspective, their staff are lovely. And their logistics seem to run smoothly (on-time, not cancelled flights), although their online App is glitchy. Kenyan is professional, but clearly also struggles with technology and logistics (date changes/ticketing errors) mistakes that one would not expect in 2025…although they are better than Air Madagascar!
Aviation and African politics, two of my pet interests! Let me add some color to why Ethiopian is successful from a business point of view:
1) They very early on identified that Africa-China travel and trade was going to boom, and from the late 2000s started building up their network and sales distribution in China. ET flies to more Chinese cities than basically any other non-Asian airline. They dominate Africa-China corridors in both directions with both passengers and freight. They've since started building up in the Gulf as migration and trade links with the continent grow - basically, wherever Africans want to go, ET serves.
2) They leverage network effects to their maximum extent. Bole Airport is so busy precisely because ET schedules all of its flights to land and take off at the same time to maximize connections. Often that makes ET the only 1-stop option between many city pairs. They run Asky the same way - everyone arrives in Lome around the same time, everyone takes off between 1 and 2 hours later. No other African airline matches their operational discipline. Uganda Airlines, for example, has mostly random timings and odd 4 or 6 hour connection windows, so they are really only competitive with Ugandan passengers on direct flights, not connecting passengers.
Finally I think there are some factors to the rise of low-cost airlines in the West that are of interest to political scientists. Ryanair pioneered low-cost airlines that fly to secondary airports far from city centers - those airports were mainly disused military airfields from WWII that shifted to civilian control post-Cold War. Those airports offered lower taxes / fees (or acquiesced to Ryanair's demand for them) to attract more carriers - which drove down prices. Most African countries have never had to build infrastructure to fight air wars, and manage airports from a central national authority - which doesn't incentivize an enterprising local manager to build up low-cost services to an airport. Another case of wars make states...
Excellent piece. Wonderful to read an analysis explaining the success that Ethiopian has achieved.
I once booked a short Uganda Airlines flight where the ticketing process made it seem like no pieces of luggage were included. I added it for an extortionary $100 (on a $400 flight) but then the ticket itself said this $100 was for a third bag (which I did not need). Getting this charge taken off proved impossible as I was bounced between individuals who took weeks to answer and were not empowered to do anything by their software. Such is life.
Ethiopian has been good to me for 10+ years, however. I expect them to become the Turkish Airlines of Africa in 20 years.
Oh, this article hits all the thoughts and feels around air travel in Madagascar. Right now an internal flight of less than 1.5 hours costs 2 million Ariary about $450 USD!!! And we haven’t even left the country! Last I heard Air Madagascar had something like 800 employees for 7 or 8 airplanes…
Anecdotally, Ethiopian Airlines is one of my favorite airlines to fly from a service and price perspective, their staff are lovely. And their logistics seem to run smoothly (on-time, not cancelled flights), although their online App is glitchy. Kenyan is professional, but clearly also struggles with technology and logistics (date changes/ticketing errors) mistakes that one would not expect in 2025…although they are better than Air Madagascar!