Ethiopia’s Bishoftu Airport: Building a $12.5bn Hub on Fractured Ground

Can Infrastructure Forge Stability Where Politics Has Failed?

By E Frashie, Ethiopian Tribune Columnist

About an hour south of Addis Ababa, on farmland that has sustained communities for generations, Ethiopia is preparing to construct what would become Africa’s largest airport, a $12.5bn megaproject that crystallises both the audacity and the contradictions of modern African development. The Bishoftu International Airport, as envisioned by Ethiopian Airlines and the African Development Bank, would eventually accommodate 110m passengers annually, more travellers than passed through Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson in 2024, the world’s busiest airport for most years since 1999. Yet beneath the renderings of gleaming terminals and the projections of continental connectivity lies a more troubling question: can a nation build its way to stability when the foundations, political settlement, social cohesion, and basic governance, remain dangerously fractured?

The strategic logic underpinning Bishoftu is formidable, rooted not in fantasy but in the demonstrable success of Ethiopian Airlines, a rare African state enterprise that has consistently defied the continent’s norm of chronically loss-making carriers. As The Economist notes, Ethiopian Airlines has maintained profitability for nearly two decades. In 2024, its passenger-carrying capacity roughly equalled that of Africa’s second, third, and fourth-largest airlines combined. When travelling between African capitals or onward to Europe, Ethiopian often provides the cheapest option, and frequently the only one. The airline reported record revenues of $7.6bn in its 2025 fiscal year, positioning it as a genuine continental champion.

This success creates genuine constraints that Bishoftu would address. The current Addis Ababa Bole International Airport, with capacity for 22m passengers annually, faces imminent saturation. Ethiopian Airlines expects to handle 66m passengers by 2035, nearly triple Bole’s capability. Moreover, Bole’s location at 2,300 metres altitude forces aircraft to depart lighter, reducing cargo and fuel capacity. This prevents profitable direct long-haul flights to North America with full payloads. Bishoftu, positioned approximately 400 metres lower, eliminates this technical handicap. For a carrier whose “Vision 2035” strategy aims to join the world’s top 20 aviation groups, the new hub represents operational necessity, not mere ambition.

The African Development Bank’s involvement lends institutional credibility. As lead arranger, the AfDB is committing $500m and aims to mobilise nearly $8bn from commercial lenders, development institutions, and export-credit agencies. The bank explicitly frames Bishoftu as aligned with the African Union’s Agenda 2063 and the Single African Air Transport Market continental integration agendas requiring precisely the kind of seamless hub infrastructure Ethiopia proposes to build. Finance Minister Ahmed Shide announced that $4.8bn has been pledged following investor presentations at the Africa Investment Forum in Rabat, with Ethiopian Airlines chief executive Mesfin Tasew Bekele revealing an additional $500m commitment from a Chinese bank. For international financiers, the project represents a bankable African infrastructure asset backed by a profitable corporation’s balance sheet a rarity on the continent.

The geopolitical dimension further strengthens the case. United States support for Bishoftu, explicitly framed as counterbalance to years of Chinese infrastructure dominance in the Horn of Africa, aligns with the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment. For Washington, backing a successful African private-sector entity represents a shift from aid-based engagement towards high-value economic partnership. For Ethiopia, US involvement diversifies international partnerships, reducing overreliance on any single power whilst enhancing negotiating sovereignty. The airport becomes not merely infrastructure but a statement of strategic agency in the complex geopolitics of East Africa.

Yet The Economist’s reporting and critical academic analysis converge on a troubling reality: the project’s commercial soundness collides violently with Ethiopia’s political fragility. The fundamental counter-argument is stark: large-scale infrastructure cannot manufacture stability, it requires stability to succeed. As Ethiopian scholars bluntly observe, “growth without peace is a mirage.” Ethiopia’s recent history validates this warning. The two-year Tigray war, alongside persistent conflicts in Amhara, Oromia, and elsewhere, has devastated infrastructure, displaced millions, and eroded the investor confidence that megaprojects depend upon. Data from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project recorded 1,105 political violence events in Ethiopia during 2023 alone, resulting in more than 5,428 reported fatalities.

The Economist highlights that political instability and ongoing conflicts, coupled with tensions with Eritrea over Ethiopia’s pursuit of sea access, could jeopardise the entire undertaking. These are not peripheral challenges to be overcome through airline resilience but existential threats to the project’s operational future. Construction of this scale requires secure supply chains, predictable logistics, and sustained public investment capacity. An international hub depends on confidence from global airlines, freight forwarders, and tourists. As conflict diverts increasing budget shares towards defence and security, Ethiopia’s fiscal pressures are acute, the state’s capacity to co-finance and guarantee long-term infrastructure ventures deteriorates.

The airport’s construction will displace approximately 15,000 people from their land, a scale of dispossession that crystallises deeper tensions about who benefits from Ethiopia’s modernisation. According to The Economist, whilst Ethiopian Airlines has allocated $350m for livelihood restoration and resettlement, and some residents have received promises of housing, others fear losing land without adequate compensation. Activists who have raised concerns about the displacement process have reportedly faced harassment and arrests. Mesfin Tasew indicated that resettlement sites should be completed and farmers relocated by late 2025, framing this as evidence of project momentum. Yet for displaced communities, Bishoftu represents not opportunity but dispossession, potentially fuelling precisely the centre-periphery grievances that have ignited conflict across Ethiopia.

The displacement process reveals the project’s fundamental political character. In a functioning democracy with strong civil society protections, large-scale land acquisition generates robust public debate, transparent compensation mechanisms, and genuine community participation. Ethiopia’s approach suggests a more authoritarian model where state development imperatives override local consent—a recipe for resentment that can metastasise into resistance. The project’s promoters acknowledge “regional and global challenges” but frame them as external obstacles. This risks catastrophic underestimation of how internal state fragility constitutes fundamental risk to financial models predicated on decades of stable operation.

Perhaps the most profound critique concerns what economists call opportunity cost: the value of alternatives forgone. In a nation where poverty has increased significantly in recent years and millions depend on humanitarian assistance, directing $12.5bn towards a single aviation facility represents an extraordinary allocation choice. The World Bank and international agencies focus their Ethiopian interventions on basic healthcare, food security, and social services, the unglamorous infrastructure of human development. Whilst Bishoftu may generate specialised aviation jobs and foreign currency for Ethiopian Airlines, it offers limited pathways from poverty for the rural majority or unemployed urban youth.

A critical question confronts policymakers: is this concentration of capital in a single node the most effective development path, or would distributed investment in agriculture, light manufacturing, and rural infrastructure yield broader socioeconomic returns and more durable stability? The airport will certainly transform Bishoftu into an urbanised economic centre, complete with expressways, rail links, hotels, and retail complexes. Such development may deepen rather than bridge the gap between a globally connected capital region and an impoverished, conflict-affected hinterland exacerbating the very centre-periphery divisions underlying Ethiopia’s conflicts. This represents a classic top-down, capital-intensive development model. Whilst Ethiopian Airlines benefits operationally and the state gains symbolic prestige, the project does little to address the agrarian crisis fuelling discontent in regions like Oromia or the youth unemployment driving radicalisation nationwide.

Even assuming political stability materialises, the project faces substantial market headwinds that The Economist identifies. Regional competitors are expanding aggressively: Kenya, Rwanda, and Tanzania are all upgrading aviation infrastructure. Meanwhile, Gulf carriers Emirates and Qatar Airways, along with Turkish Airlines’ expanding African network through Istanbul’s massive new airport, directly threaten Ethiopian Airlines’ connecting traffic. Ethiopian Airlines’ competitive advantage has partly rested on offering the sole connection between many African city pairs. As regional competitors build capacity and Gulf/Turkish carriers add African routes, that near-monopolistic position erodes. The Economist notes these competitive pressures could significantly affect the project’s timeline and scope.

There are execution risks as well. The financing structure, though advanced, remains incomplete. Long-term debt service must be carefully managed to avoid exacerbating Ethiopia’s existing debt pressures, particularly given reduced fiscal capacity from ongoing conflicts. Construction delays, cost overruns, or political disruptions could transform a bankable project into a fiscal albatross. Whilst US backing provides crucial financing, it also entangles Bishoftu in great-power competition, creating new vulnerabilities. Ethiopia has skilfully navigated relations between the United States, China, and Middle Eastern powers. However, making Bishoftu a centrepiece of US “counterbalance” strategy could expose it to shifts in American foreign policy or complications in Ethiopia’s other crucial relationships.

The government’s parallel strategic ambition aggressive pursuit of sea access has already raised tensions with Eritrea. Bishoftu, as a symbol of Western-aligned development, could inadvertently become a target in regional rivalries, exposing the project to security and diplomatic risks beyond Ethiopia’s control. Ethiopian scholars argue compellingly that the project’s success as a tool for “returning the country to stability and development” the framing used by international partners is fundamentally not an aviation or finance question. It is a governance question.

The airport will succeed only if accompanied by parallel, equally urgent efforts to achieve genuine political settlement. This requires addressing root causes of conflict that analysts identify as land disputes, resource competition, and questions of political representation. It demands a state capable of guaranteeing security not merely at the airport perimeter but throughout supply chains and communities nationwide. Large-scale infrastructure in fragmented states can exacerbate existing tensions, divert scarce resources from basic needs, and create rents fuelling corruption and elite competition. Without foundational political stability and inclusive governance, megaprojects risk becoming monuments to misplaced priorities rather than catalysts for transformation.

Bishoftu ultimately serves as a test case for a development model increasingly popular across Africa: using signature infrastructure as both economic catalyst and political statement. From Lagos to Nairobi, governments pursue projects meant to signal arrival on the global stage whilst attracting investment and creating jobs. Ethiopia’s version is among the most ambitious and, given the country’s fragility, among the riskiest. The African Development Bank’s characterisation of Bishoftu as embodying “speed and scale” in national development captures both appeal and danger. Speed and scale in infrastructure mean little if underlying political architecture remains fractured.

For international financiers and development institutions, the calculus involves weighing Ethiopian Airlines’ proven track record against Ethiopia’s unproven peace. For ordinary Ethiopians, particularly the 15,000 being displaced and millions facing poverty, the question is simpler: does this megaproject serve immediate needs, or does it prioritise elite ambitions and corporate growth over basic human development? The Bishoftu International Airport will almost certainly be built. Ethiopian Airlines needs it operationally, the government wants it symbolically, and international financiers see a bankable project led by a competent corporate champion. Groundbreaking approaches, financing is being mobilised, and resettlement is underway.

Whether it achieves its grander ambition, strengthening Ethiopia’s stability and catalysing inclusive development, remains profoundly uncertain. The technical specifications will be met: four runways, 110m passenger capacity, modern terminals with cutting-edge technology. Whether those runways serve a stable, prosperous nation or merely provide infrastructure in a continuing crisis will be determined not by aviation engineers but by political leaders, peace negotiators, and the millions of Ethiopians whose voices are largely absent from these infrastructure deliberations.

The airport represents a powerful bet on a particular future for Ethiopia, one of global integration and centralised, infrastructure-led growth. This bet’s success depends almost entirely on actions taken far from the construction site: in peace dialogues, in equitable economic policies, and in the difficult work of building legitimate and inclusive political institutions. Without progress on this governance front, Bishoftu may stand as a world-class island of connectivity in a sea of instability, fulfilling its corporate purpose for Ethiopian Airlines whilst failing its national aspiration as a stability catalyst. As The Economist notes, conflict, competition, and government interference cloud prospects for what remains, on paper, a compelling aviation project.

The megahub’s legacy therefore remains suspended between the runway’s promise and the nation’s peril. It could vindicate the infrastructure-led development model, demonstrating that bold investment in connectivity can help stabilise fragile states. Or it could stand as a monument to misplaced priorities, tangible proof that pouring concrete cannot substitute for building peace. For now, the fundamental question remains unresolved: can you build an airport to the future when the present remains so violently contested?