By E Frashie Ethiopian Tribune Columnist

The spectacle unfolded with predictable diplomatic grace. Ahmed Shide, flanked by technocrats bearing reform credentials, presented Ethiopia’s latest infrastructural dream to Christopher Landau: a New International Airport that would, we are told, cement our nation’s place as the aviation crossroads of Africa. The pitch was delivered with the earnest confidence of a government that believes it has finally learned to speak the language of international finance. One wonders whether Washington was listening, or merely being polite.

Let us be clear: the airport itself is no fantasy. Ethiopian Airlines has become our most undeniable success story, a rare state enterprise that operates not as a patronage vehicle but as a genuine commercial force. Bole International Airport, conceived in a different era, now strains under passenger volumes that have tripled in barely more than a decade. The airline’s ambitions, continental dominance, global connectivity, cannot be realised from an infrastructure choking on its own success. A new airport is not governmental grandstanding; it is commercial logic.

But logic and timing are not always companions. The government presents this proposal at a moment when our macroeconomic foundations resemble less a platform for launch than quicksand requiring constant attention. Inflation persists in double digits despite official assurances of moderation. Our foreign reserves hover perilously around two months of import cover a figure that would alarm any serious economist. The birr continues its choreographed decline, and our Chinese creditors loom large in the fiscal shadows, their patience neither infinite nor unconditional.

So when Minister Ahmed speaks of American finance and engineering expertise, we must recognise this for what it truly is: an attempt to escape a creditor relationship that has grown uncomfortably singular. For two decades, Chinese state enterprises have reshaped our physical landscape, railways, roads, industrial parks, often on terms whose opacity matched their generosity. Now, with Beijing reassessing its global commitments and Ethiopia nursing debt obligations that constrain every budget negotiation, Addis Ababa seeks new partners. The turn to Washington is less conversion than diversification.

The Americans, credit to them, have responded with the diplomatic equivalent of “show us the money.” Landau’s acknowledgment of our reform progress came wrapped in the careful language of private-sector engagement—code for demanding the very things Chinese lenders rarely insisted upon: transparency, enforceable contracts, predictable regulation, political stability. These are not unreasonable requirements. They are, however, uncomfortable ones for a government whose recent history includes civil conflict, internet blackouts, and human rights controversies that have tested Western patience.

The reform narrative our ministers presented is familiar to anyone who has followed multilateral lending discussions: fiscal consolidation, monetary discipline, private-sector-led growth. These phrases roll easily off official tongues, honed through countless meetings with IMF delegations and World Bank missions. But rhetoric and reality maintain an uneasy relationship in Ethiopian political economy. We have announced reforms before. Implementation has proven the harder discipline.

Consider the government’s infrastructure record. The Addis-Djibouti Railway operates, yes, but profitability remains elusive and maintenance costs mount. The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam stands as both national achievement and cautionary tale years behind schedule, billions over budget, diplomatically toxic. These projects reflect a pattern: ambition announced with fanfare, execution plagued by complications the initial projections somehow failed to anticipate. Why should the airport escape this trajectory?

Yet dismissing the airport as mere governmental overreach would be equally mistaken. Aviation represents one sector where Ethiopia possesses genuine competitive advantage. Ethiopian Airlines contributes approximately three percent of GDP and supports employment networks extending far beyond its direct payroll. The hub-and-spoke model upon which this success depends absolutely requires infrastructure capable of sustaining growth. Without the airport, we risk strangling our most successful enterprise in the cradle of its own expansion.

The question, then, is not whether Ethiopia needs this airport but whether Ethiopia can deliver it. The government has offered no detailed cost projections, no financing structure, no clarity on whether this will be public-private partnership, sovereign loan, or some multilateral arrangement. This absence of specificity is not encouraging. Large infrastructure projects require not only vision but mathematical precision, risk assessment, and honest accounting of what we can afford versus what we aspire to build.

The government’s simultaneous push for banking sector liberalisation and telecommunications reform suggests awareness that credibility requires more than promises. Foreign investors particularly American firms unaccustomed to the patient opacity of Chinese state capitalism will demand evidence of regulatory consistency and judicial independence. They will scrutinise land rights frameworks, labour relations, currency policy, and a dozen other factors that determine whether contracts mean what they claim to mean.

This is where the airport proposal transcends infrastructure and becomes geopolitical theatre. Washington views the Horn of Africa as strategically significant, a region where Chinese influence has grown uncomfortably dominant from the American perspective. Supporting Ethiopian infrastructure allows the United States to deepen economic engagement while promoting its preferred development model: private capital, governance standards, environmental commitments. But American engagement will be conditional, calibrated by risk assessments that weigh Ethiopia’s potential against its instabilities.

For Addis Ababa, the calculation is equally complex. We need Western goodwill for ongoing IMF negotiations and access to concessional finance. We need to demonstrate we are not simply a Chinese client state. But we also need to maintain domestic political control and manage nationalist sensitivities about foreign influence. The airport becomes the stage upon which these contradictions must somehow be reconciled.

The Ethiopian public, meanwhile, observes with practiced scepticism. We have heard grand infrastructure promises before. We have watched costs balloon and timelines extend while benefits concentrate in familiar hands. The government must therefore communicate not merely the vision but the mechanics: Who will build? Who will profit? Who will bear the costs if projections prove optimistic? Transparency is not simply a Western imposition; it is the foundation of public trust in expensive national commitments.

What unfolds here is larger than an airport. It is Ethiopia attempting to rewrite its economic model while managing the geopolitical consequences of past choices. It is a government seeking legitimacy through reform rhetoric while grappling with implementation challenges that rhetoric cannot solve. It is a nation at the intersection of aspiration and constraint, hoping American capital can bridge the gap.

The airport may eventually rise concrete and steel testament to Ethiopian ambition and American partnership. Or it may join the lengthening list of projects whose promise exceeded our capacity for delivery. The difference will be determined not by ministerial presentations in Washington but by the unglamorous work of building institutions, honouring commitments, and managing the distance between what we announce and what we achieve.

For now, the proposal stands as exactly that: a proposal, polished and presented, awaiting the cold arithmetic of feasibility studies and risk assessments. Whether it becomes monument or mirage depends on questions the government has yet to answer publicly. One hopes the enthusiasm for American finance is matched by appetite for American scrutiny.

The challenge, as always, is ours to meet.

 The views expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of the Ethiopian Tribune

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By Sewasew Teklemariam

There is something almost tragicomic about watching great powers rediscover Ethiopia every few decades, dusting off the same old script: brave ally, reliable troops, convenient geography. One might be forgiven for thinking that somewhere in Washington, a filing cabinet labelled “Break Glass in Case of Unpopular War” contains a single index card reading: “Try Ethiopia.”

And so here we are again. Seventy-four years after Ethiopian soldiers froze in Korean trenches defending a principle called “collective security,” Addis Ababa finds itself courted once more, this time for Gaza, that graveyard of diplomatic ambition and geopolitical vanity. The Americans, it seems, have run out of takers. The Arabs are squeamish. The Europeans are preoccupied. Enter Ethiopia: loyal, militarily competent, and crucially still returning phone calls.

One almost admires the symmetry.

Let us begin with an uncomfortable fact that tends to disappear from polite diplomatic conversation: Ethiopia earned its stripes as an international actor not through hashtag solidarity or conference-room grandstanding, but by sending young men to die in someone else’s war. Between 1951 and 1954, over 6,000 Ethiopian troops served in Korea under the United Nations Command, personally authorised by Emperor Haile Selassie. The Kagnew Battalions fought at Pork Chop Hill, Old Baldy, and other places whose names now exist only in military histories and fading monuments. They earned a distinction almost quaint by today’s standards: not a single Ethiopian soldier was left behind or captured. Not one (United Nations Command historical records; US Army Center of Military History).

This was not theatre. It was war, and Ethiopia bled for it. The casualty figures, whilst modest by Korean War standards, were significant for a country of Ethiopia’s size and resources. Ethiopian field hospitals treated wounded Americans, Britons, and Turks alongside their own. Ethiopian officers coordinated with UN commanders in conditions that would test any alliance. And when the armistice was signed in 1953, Ethiopia remained in Korea for another year, because that was what collective security demanded.

Why? Because Haile Selassie, having watched the League of Nations abandon his country to Mussolini’s poison gas in 1936, believed, perhaps naively, that multilateralism might actually mean something if smaller nations upheld it. Ethiopia, he reasoned, must defend collective security abroad so that collective security might one day defend Ethiopia. It was a wager on principle over pragmatism, idealism over cynicism, the sort of bet that history tends to punish with exquisite cruelty.

It didn’t, of course. But more on that shortly.

The Korean deployment was not merely military. It was deeply symbolic. Here was an African nation, barely a decade removed from Italian occupation, standing shoulder to shoulder with the West not as a supplicant or protectorate, but as an equal partner in defence of international law. Ethiopian diplomats at the United Nations made much of this. So did American officials, who found Ethiopia’s participation useful for demonstrating that the Korean intervention was a truly international effort, not merely Western imperialism in multilateral drag.

Yet even then, cracks were visible. Ethiopian requests for military aid and modernisation assistance were met with warm words and modest gestures, but nothing approaching the largesse showered on more strategically located allies. The message, subtle but unmistakable, was clear: Ethiopia’s contribution was valued, but not valuable enough to fundamentally alter the transactional calculus of Cold War patronage.

Fast forward to December 2025. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrives in Addis Ababa, all smiles and Memoranda of Understanding. Bilateral relations are elevated to a “Strategic Partnership” that most elastic of diplomatic phrases, meaning everything and nothing simultaneously. There is talk of customs cooperation, digital infrastructure, peacekeeping training, and G20 debt relief (Government of India press briefings; Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs statements). All very modern. All very multilateral. The optics are impeccable: two ancient civilisations, both asserting themselves on the global stage, forging bonds of South-South cooperation untainted by colonial baggage.

Then, almost on cue, the other shoe drops.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, according to the Times of Israel, has asked Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed to consider contributing Ethiopian troops to a proposed International Stabilisation Force for Gaza (Times of Israel, 19 December 2025). Not a UN mission, mind you. Not even a particularly coherent coalition. Just a hastily assembled fig leaf for President Trump’s latest ceasefire plan, which Arab and Muslim states are treating like a radioactive briefcase (Reuters, 17 December 2025).

Pakistan has demurred. Indonesia is dodging calls. Saudi Arabia is suddenly very interested in Yemen again. Egypt, despite its own security concerns in Sinai, has made its discomfort plain. Jordan, normally America’s most reliable Arab partner, is keeping a careful distance. Even the Gulf states, usually amenable to American security requests when sufficiently incentivised, have found reasons to be elsewhere.

And so Washington, in its infinite resourcefulness, has turned to Ethiopia: that reliable old warhorse, still standing after everyone else has bolted from the stable. One might call it flattering, if it weren’t so depressingly familiar.

To be fair, Ethiopia is a serious peacekeeping nation. It currently ranks among the top global contributors to UN missions, with troops in Abyei, Darfur, and Somalia (UN Department of Peace Operations data). Ethiopian soldiers are disciplined, experienced, and, unlike certain Western contingents, unlikely to flee at the first whiff of cordite. They have earned respect in some of Africa’s most challenging environments, operating in conditions that would give European defence ministers nightmares and human rights lawyers apoplexy.

But Gaza is not Darfur. And the proposed ISF is not a UN mission.

It is a politically contested, regionally explosive, militarily ambiguous intervention in one of the world’s most volatile theatres. Trump’s ceasefire framework explicitly links stabilisation to Hamas disarmament, a condition that Hamas rejects, Arab states won’t enforce, and no serious analyst believes can be achieved without catastrophic escalation (Reuters; public statements by Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar, November 2025). The very premise of the mission is contested. The rules of engagement are undefined. The exit strategy is non-existent. The political legitimacy is questionable at best.

In other words, it’s a deathtrap wrapped in a press release. And Ethiopia is being asked to walk into it.

The parallel to Korea is instructive, but not in the way American officials might hope. Korea, whatever its horrors, was a UN-mandated mission with broad international support, clear opposing forces, and a defined military objective. Gaza would be none of these things. It would be an occupation masquerading as stabilisation, a political arrangement imposed by force and sustained by the presence of foreign troops whom neither side particularly wants. Ethiopian soldiers would find themselves policing a ceasefire that nobody believes in, enforcing a disarmament that cannot be achieved, and serving as convenient targets for any faction seeking to demonstrate its resistance credentials.

Then there is Egypt, which watches all of this with the cold attentiveness of a creditor studying a debtor’s new car. Relations between Addis Ababa and Cairo are hardly warm. The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam remains a source of existential anxiety for Egypt, which views Ethiopian control over Nile waters the way Britain once viewed German control of the Channel: intolerable.

Ethiopian troops in Gaza, right on Egypt’s doorstep, would be read in Cairo not as burden-sharing, but as triangulation. Ethiopia securing American goodwill in the Middle East whilst remaining immovable on the Nile. Geopolitical judo. Egypt might publicly welcome the assistance, might even offer logistical support and coordinated border security. Privately, it would seethe. And mistrust, once entrenched, is devilishly difficult to dislodge. Every Ethiopian patrol near Rafah would be interpreted through the prism of Nile politics. Every American commendation of Ethiopian reliability would be seen as a subtle rebuke to Egyptian inflexibility on GERD.

The broader Arab world would face similar contradictions. How does one explain to a restive population that African troops are being deployed to stabilise Gaza when Arab armies stood aside? The optics are appalling. The politics worse. Ethiopian participation, however well-intentioned, risks becoming a symbol not of international cooperation but of Arab impotence and Western manipulation.

To understand why many Ethiopians regard these American overtures with the enthusiasm one reserves for unsolicited timeshare presentations, one must confront an inconvenient historical truth: the West has form. The overthrow of Ethiopia’s monarchy in 1974 was not merely a domestic revolution. It was Cold War opportunism dressed in Marxist rhetoric. Haile Selassie, having served as a steadfast American ally, hosting Kagnew Station, America’s largest communications facility in Africa, supporting Western positions at the UN, maintaining open trade and diplomatic channels, found that loyalty evaporated the moment his utility did.

Western powers, suddenly squeamish about imperial anachronism and distracted by Vietnam, Watergate, and oil shocks, stood aside. The Soviets, delighted, moved in with advisors, weapons, and ideological support (Bahru Zewde, A History of Modern Ethiopia; declassified US and Soviet Cold War records). What followed was not liberation, but systematic dismantling. Ethiopia’s historical state structure was replaced by a Derg regime whose brutality matched its incompetence, and then by an ethno-federal system whose long-term consequences are still being violently litigated in Tigray, Oromia, and Amhara.

The lesson? Loyalty rewarded when convenient. Sovereignty negotiable when inconvenient.

Nor did the post-Cold War era offer correction. Instead, Ethiopia became a laboratory for externally endorsed political engineering, celebrated when stable, condemned when fractured. Critics argue, with some justice, that the international community prioritised short-term manageability over long-term cohesion, tolerating governance models that institutionalised division whilst ignoring their destabilising effects. Western donors pumped billions into Ethiopia during the Meles Zenawi years, praising “African Renaissance” and “developmental state” whilst carefully averting their gaze from political repression and ethnic manipulation.

When the system finally collapsed into civil war in 2020, those same donors expressed shock, shocked!that such instability could emerge from a framework they had spent decades endorsing. It is within this historical memory that fears of a “second disintegration” must be understood, not as paranoia, but as pattern recognition.

If Ethiopia commits troops to Gaza without a clear UN mandate, defined rules of engagement, and regional consensus, it risks becoming once again, the geopolitical equivalent of a hired extra: visible in the frame, expendable in the edit. The question is not whether Ethiopia can contribute to global peace. Korea answered that. The question is whether selective internationalism, driven by great-power convenience, will once again leave Ethiopia holding the bag whilst others collect the applause.

There is also the domestic dimension to consider. Ethiopia is hardly in a position of domestic tranquillity from which to project military power abroad. The Tigray conflict may have formally ended, but its political, economic, and humanitarian consequences continue to reverberate. Ethnic tensions remain acute. The economy is strained. The military itself has been stretched thin by years of internal conflict. Deploying thousands of troops to Gaza whilst Amhara and Oromia simmer would be the diplomatic equivalent of reorganising the deck chairs whilst the hull takes on water.

Ethiopia’s history, from Korea to Cold War abandonment, from peacekeeping leadership to domestic fragmentation, offers a lesson that extends beyond Addis Ababa. It is a lesson about the limits of loyalty in an international system that rewards power and punishes principle. Strategic partnerships grounded in development and mutual respect, such as the one recently signed with India, strengthen sovereignty because they assume equality of agency and mutuality of benefit. Security arrangements imposed by geopolitical necessity do not, because they assume hierarchy and instrumentality.

If there is to be another chapter in Ethiopia’s long record of international service, it must be written with historical memory as strategy, not sentiment. The Kagnew Battalions deserve better than to be remembered as a cautionary tale of loyalty unrequited. Ethiopia’s current generation deserves better than to repeat their predecessors’ mistakes in a different desert, under a different flag, for similarly nebulous reasons.

The filing cabinet remains open. The index card remains tempting. But perhaps this time, Ethiopia might politely suggest that someone else take a turn. After all, there are plenty of nations who have benefited from American patronage over the decades. Perhaps it’s their turn to demonstrate that special relationships involve actual reciprocity, not just convenient deployment schedules.

History, as they say, doesn’t repeat itself. But it does rhyme. And Ethiopia has heard this particular verse before.

Key Sources:
United Nations Command & UN Department of Peace Operations historical records; US Army Center of Military History (Korean War archives); Times of Israel, 19 December 2025; Reuters, 17 December 2025; Government of India and Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs press releases; Bahru Zewde, A History of Modern Ethiopia

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Ethiopian Airlines announced the resumption of flights to Mekelle, Tigray, beginning tomorrow. It is a decision made just a day after a federal government delegation, including Mesfin Tassew, CEO of Ethiopian Airlines, traveled to Mekelle, Tigray’s capital, to meet with officials of the Tigray People Liberation Front-led administration in the region to discuss the implementation of the peace deal signed between Tigrayan combatants and the federal government.

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#EthiopianAirlines

የኢትዮጵያ አየር መንገድ ግሩፕ ካፒታሉን ወደ 300 ቢሊዮን ብር ለማሳደግ የካፒታል ማሻሻያ ጥያቄ ለኢትዮጵያ ኢንቨስትመንት ሆልዲንግ ማቅረቡን ሪፖርተር ጋዜጣ አስነብቧል።

አየር መንገዱ አሁን ያለውን 100 ቢሊዮን ብር ካፒታል ለማሳደግ ያቀረበው ጥያቄ ለኢትዮጵያ ኢንቨስትመንት ሆልዲንግ ቦርድ ቀርቦ እየታየ ሲሆን ቦርዱ ተወያይቶ ውሳኔ ይሰጥበታል ተብል።

የኢትዮጵያ አየር መንገድ ግሩፕ ዋና ሥራ አስፈጻሚ አቶ መስፍን ጣሰው ፤ ” አሁን ያለንን 100 ቢሊዮን ብር ካፒታል ማሳደግ የፈለግንበት ምክንያት፣ ወሮታችን ከፍ እያለ በመምጣቱ ሲሆን፣ በቅርቡ ያፀድቁልናል ብለን እናስባለን ” ሲሉ ተናግረዋል።

የአየር መንገዱ የካፒታል ማሻሻያ ጥያቄ ለኢትዮጵያ ኢንቨስትመንት ሆልዲንግ ቦርድ ቀርቦ እየታየ እንደሚገኝ ጋዜጣው ከኢትዮጵያ ኢንቨስትመንት ሆልዲንግ ግሩፕ ማረጋገጡን አመልክቷል።

አቶ መስፍን የካፒታል ማሻሻያ ጥያቄውን ምክንያት በተመለከተ፤ ” የምናንቀሳቅሰው ገንዘብ እያደገ በመምጣቱና የካፒታል ማሻሻያ ከሌለ ትክክለኛ የፋይናንስ አያያዝ ለመፍጠር ስለሚያስቸግር ” ነው ብለዋል።

” በተጨማሪም አሁንም አዳዲስ አውሮፕላኖች እያስመጣን ነው፡፡ በምናስመጣበት ወቅት የዕዳና ካፒታል ምጣኔ መመጣጠን አለበት፡፡ አብዛኛውን ጊዜ የአውሮፕላን የሚገዛው በብድር ስለሆነ አበዳሪዎቹ ጋ ተቀባይነት እንዲያገኝ ከፍ ያለ የሀብት መጠን መድረስ አለበት። ብለዋል፡፡

የዕዳ እና ካፒታል ምጣኔ ተቋሙ ካለው ካፒታል አንፃር ሲታይ ምክንያታዊ ካልሆነ አበዳሪዎቹ ለማመን እንደሚቸገሩ አቶ መስፍን መግለፃቸውን ሪፖርተር ጋዜጣ አስነብቧል።

Source: Ethiopian Reporter

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By Joanna Bailey

Ethiopian Airlines’ agility has allowed it to grow to become one of the biggest airlines in the world. Its focus on hub and spoke operations has driven it to target the building of a $5 billion mega airport by 2035. But has the coronavirus crisis changed its ambition and outlook? Acting CCO, Esayas WoldeMariam, says not.

Surviving COVID

Over the course of 2019, Ethiopian Airlines generated $4 billion of revenue. This came from shuttling 12 million passengers around the world, as well as shifting over 400,000 tons of freight. 2020 has played out a different way.

Back in April, CEO of Ethiopian Tewolde GebreMariam said that, between January and March, the COVID crisis had caused the airline to lose $550 million of its anticipated revenue, due to the downturn in travel demand. A rapid pivot to cargo saw Ethiopian clawing back some of those losses, helping it survive the crisis with no bailout.

Why US Airlines Don’t Fly The Airbus A380?

Regardless of how Ethiopian’s agility has helped it get through COVID, it would be remiss to assume that there hasn’t been an impact. Airlines all over the world have been struggling, finding themselves forced to lay off workers and downsize their fleets, putting big projects on the back burner.

Ethiopian Airlines
Having inbuilt agility to diversify has seen Ethiopian through COVID with no bailout. Photo: Getty Images
Ethiopian Airlines’ big projects revolve around its Vision 2035 strategy. Having completed its Vision 2025 goals no less than seven years early, the airline realigned its future ambitions for growth. But has the impact of COVID made Ethiopian rethink its objectives?

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The $5 billion airport city

Back in January, when Ethiopian was laying out its plans under Vision 2035, the aggressive expansion it desired was clear to see. Based on the projected growth of Africa’s population and rising propensity to travel, the airline was now targeting revenue growth to $25 billion and adding aircraft to bring its fleet to more than 200.

One of the most ambitious parts of this strategy was the building of a mega airport, capable of handling 100 million passengers a year. The plans were for something more akin to a city than just an airport, boasting shopping malls, training centers and hotels. CEO GebreMariam said,

“We have identified 35sqkm land to be developed as an airport and it is about a $5bn project – larger than the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD). It is going to accommodate 100m passengers; larger than Dubai and more or less equal to the new Istanbul airport.”

But, of course, that was before COVID hit.

Ethiopian Airlines
The airline wants an airport that will outclass Dubai. Photo: Getty Images
No change

Nobody would bat an eyelid if Ethiopian were to scale down its Vision 2035 targets. Given that it just opened a brand new terminal at Addis Ababa Bole to scale up its hub capacity, pulling back from the huge investment of the new airport would be completely understandable.

Simple Flying asked Acting Chief Commercial Officer Esayas WoldeMariam whether the project would be put on the back burner, given the state of the industry. He was quick to say that it’s still firmly on the cards. He told us,

“We will definitely continue with the project. Ethiopia is one of the fastest growing economies on the continent. The population is growing, demand is growing. It’s in our long term strategy, Vision 2035, so definitely, we’re going to go for that.”

Ethiopian
Despite COVID, the project is still in Ethiopian’s sights. Photo: Ethiopian Airlines
Vision 2035 is a 15-year growth plan. But given Ethiopian’s achievement of its 2025 plan several years early, we could potentially see the new airport opening as soon as ten years from now. An airport of that size and quality would position Ethiopian perfectly to grow as a hub and spoke carrier, allowing it to compete with the big Middle East airlines for its share of the worldwide traffic.

Depending on how demand recovers following COVID, perhaps Ethiopian could be the Emirates of the future.

This article is republished from Simpleflying under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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An Ethiopian Airlines’ flight from Addis Ababa to Shanghai will be suspended for a week from August 31 after passengers tested positive for COVID-19, China’s civil aviation authority said on Wednesday.

It is the seventh suspension of international flights to Shanghai by the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) in two weeks. Flights of four international and domestic airlines have been suspended for one to four weeks.

Six passengers on Ethiopian Airlines’ flight ET684 tested positive on arrival at Pudong airport on August 19, the CAAC said.

According to CAAC policy, if all inbound passengers on an airline test negative for three weeks in a row, it will be allowed to increase its number of flights to two per week.

If five passengers test positive, the airline’s flights will be suspended for a week. The suspension will be four weeks if at least 10 passengers on the same flight test positive.

Etihad Airways’s flight EY862 from Abu Dhabi to Shanghai was suspended for one week from August 17. The suspension was prolonged for another week from August 24 as more imported COVID-19 cases were detected.

China Eastern’s flight MU212 from Manila to Shanghai has been suspended twice by the CAAC for a total of two weeks from August 17 through 30.

Other airlines punished were SriLankan Airlines and Shanghai-based Juneyao Airlines. SriLankan’s flight UL866 from Colombo to Shanghai was halted for four weeks from August 17 after 23 passengers tested positive for COVID-19 on August 7.

Nationwide, over 10 flights have been suspended since the policy was introduced on June 4 to contain the spread of the virus.

The city reported four more imported novel coronavirus cases on Tuesday. So far, of all the 544 imported cases, 470 people have recovered while 74 are still in hospital, Shanghai Health Commission said on Wednesday morning.

Source: SHINE

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