An Ethiopian Airlines jet at Bole International Airport Addis Ababa. The
airline has 116 aircraft in its fleet and its net profit rose to $260
million in its 2018/19 financial year from $207.2 million a year
earlier. FILE PHOTO | NMG
Ethiopian Airlines will start constructing a new $5 billion
airport later this year, its chief executive officer was quoted as
saying on Wednesday, as the rapidly-expanding carrier outgrows capacity
at its current base in Addis Ababa.
The airport, which
will cover an area of 35 square km, will be built in Bishoftu, a town
39km south east of the capital, and has the capacity to handle 100
million passengers a year, the state-run Ethiopian News Agency quoted
Tewolde Gebremariam as saying.
“Bole Airport is not
going to accommodate us; we have a beautiful expansion project. The
airport looks very beautiful and very large but with the way that we are
growing, in about three or four years we are going to be full,” Mr
Tewolde said.
Bole International Airport in Addis Ababa has a passenger capacity of about 19 million passengers annually.
Mr
Tewolde noted that the price tag of the new airport was higher than the
$4 billion cost of building the still-to-be-completed Grand Ethiopian
Renaissance Dam on the Nile, with the projected passenger numbers
topping those at Dubai’s international airport.
He did not give details of how the construction would be funded, nor who would build the new airport.
The Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation quoted Mr Tewolde as saying construction will start in the next six months.
State-owned
Ethiopian Airlines, which competes with large Middle East carriers to
connect long-haul passengers, has built a patchwork of African routes
from its hub in Addis Ababa to fly customers towards expanding Asian
markets.
It has 116 aircraft in its fleet and its net
profit rose to $260 million in its 2018/19 financial year from $207.2
million a year earlier.
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