Ethiopian Cargo Freighters Join Coronavirus Relief Efforts

Ethiopian transported around 1000 tonnage shipments of medical kits to China from February 6-21, 2020 to help prevent the spread of COVID-19 (coronavirus).

In line with its Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives, Ethiopian shipped the medical kits with 10 chartered flights from different cities around the world including Liege, São Paulo, Durban, Accra, Diass, Khartoum and Dar es Salaam to three Chinese cities, namely Guangzhou, Shanghai and Chongqing.

The medical kits include face masks, nose masks and protection suits. Further contributing its share to contain the spread of COVID-19, Ethiopian plans to transport additional medical kits to China deploying five more chartered flights.

The move is Amidst rising criticism and despite the fact nearly every major world airline has suspended flights to mainland China, Ethiopian Airlines has, so far, continued flying to the virus stricken country from Addis Ababa.

For February 2020, Ethiopian Airlines has changed the aircraft operating on its Beijing, Chengdu, Guangzhou, and Shanghai flights. Instead of deploying a Boeing 777 and an Airbus A350, the African airline will now use a Boeing 787-8. This will cut capacity by between 20 and 45 percent, depending on the route.

Over the past ten years, Ethiopian Airlines has become the primary gateway for people visiting Africa with more connections to the continent than any other airline. And with more flights to China than any other African airline, critics believe that the airline’s decision to not suspend flights is because the Ethiopian government does not want to upset China.