Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner

Ethiopian Airlines announced on its dedicated Irish facebook page Ethiopian Airlines Ireland today 24 April that the carrier secured fifth freedom rights for the Dublin to Madrid route effective from Sunday 2nd June.

What is a fifth freedom right?. ICAO states “The Fifth Freedom Right is the right or privilege, in respect of scheduled international air services, granted by one State to another State to put down and to take on, in the territory of the first State, traffic coming from or destined to a third State.”

The carrier currently operates Addis Ababa-Madrid-Dublin route (ETH712/713) four times weekly (Mon, Wed, Fri, Sun) operated by Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner.  Routesonline website reported from GDS data from 16 June the airline will switch to the larger capacity 787-9 on the route.

The Dublin-Madrid is quiet competitive served by three carriers Aer Lingus 14 times weekly, Iberia Express up to 14 times weekly for summer peak and Ryanair 21 times weekly.

In June 2015, Ethiopian Airlines first entered the Irish marketplace and was the first airline to operate the Boeing 787 Dreamliner out of Dublin operating four-times weekly direct service from Dublin to LA and Dublin to Addis Ababa.  The carrier ceased operating the route on 14th December.

The carrier moved its European Hub from Rome Fiumicino to Dublin on 10 May 2015 with up to 15 weekly transit flights routing Addis Ababa-Dublin-Chicago O’Hare (ETH510) fives times weekly served by Boeing 787 aircraft and Addis Ababa-Dublin-Washington Dulles (ETH500) daily served by Boeing 777-300ER and Addis Ababa-Dublin-Toronto (ETH502) served by Boeing 777-200LR/787-8 aircraft.

Irish Aviation Research Institute © 24 April 2019 All Rights Reserved