Ethiopian Airlines saw cargo volumes rapidly improve during the fiscal year 2017/18 in line with its fleet expansion.
Cargo volumes increased by 18% year on year during the last fiscal year to 400,339 tons. This improvement comes as the airline has added to its passenger fleet, enabling it to expand its network.
In total, Ethiopian introduced 14 new aircraft and opened eight new international destinations, namely Geneva (Switzerland), Chicago (USA), Bahrain, Kaduna (Nigeria), Buenos Aires (Argentina), Kisangani and Mbuji-Mayi (Democratic Republic of Congo) and Nosy-Be (Madagascar).
The airline also opened a new state of the art cargo terminal in June last year.
Looking ahead the airline is likely to see cargo volumes rise further after it signed up for two B777Fs in June 2017 and followed this up with two more of the aircraft in November.
In addition, it leased two Boeing 737-800 freighters due to arrive in June, although at the moment it does not list them as part of its fleet on its website.
As it stands, Ethiopian Cargo is the largest network cargo operator in Africa with six B777F and two B757Fs.
Aircargo
