By Ogova Ondego
Published October 23, 2015
Ethiopian Airlines has won The Rising Star Carrier of the Year AwardÂ.
The Payload Asia Awards 2015 gala dinner, that was attended by some 250 members of the air cargo fraternity from around the globe, took place at Crowne Plaza Changi Airport in Singapore on October 15, 2015.
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The organisers of the awards say “Payload Asia 2015 is aimed at Celebrating Excellence in the Air Cargo Industry”; Ethiopian Airlines beat 76 other companies to both the Industry and Customer Choice Awards. More than 18,000 online votes were said to have been cast for 22 awards in the Customer Choice Awards both of which “were audited by [an] independent auditing firm.”
Meanwhile The New Spirit of Africa, for that is the motto of Ethiopian, shall from mid December 2015 commence three flights per week to Durban, South Africa’s second largest metropolis, from Addis Ababa. Flight ET845 will leave Addis on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday at 8.30AM and land in KwaZulu-Natal’s capital five hours later. Return flight, ET844, will leave Durban for Addis Ababa at 4.30PM on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday and touch down in Addis at 9.30PM.
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Durban shall be the third city in South Africa to be served by Ethiopian besides Cape Town in the Western Cape and Johannesburg in Gauteng provinces, respectively.
Durban is the second most important manufacturing hub in South Africa. It is also one of the main tourism destinations in Africa because of the city’s warm subtropical climate and extensive Indian Ocean beaches.
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The new service, Ethiopian says, “will offer passengers more choice and flexibility,…facilitate trade, investment, and tourism ties between Ethiopia and South Africa.”
Ethiopian has also announced what it calls special return flight fares that are ‘inclusive of taxes and fees’. They cost US$1002.62 (Los Angeles-Addis Ababa); US$869.62 (Los Angeles-Nairobi); US$999.82 (Washington DC-Entebbe); and US$872.82 (Washington DC-Johannesburg).
