Ethiopian Airlines has increased passenger flights to Guangzhou from the present daily to 10 weekly, a 43% increase. While it has been scheduled in OAG for a while, it is a significant development. It comes as others, such as Uganda Airlines, continue to say they are keen to fly to the Chinese megacity.
Ethiopian to Guangzhou
The long, 5,001-mile (8,048 km) route mainly focuses on African traders who particularly originate in countries including Nigeria, Ghana, and South Africa, along with the big African diaspora in the Guangzhou area and Chinese workers. It must generate a significant amount of revenue from extra baggage sales. Note that the carrier also operates 777 freighters to Guangzhou.
Schedule analysis shows that Ethiopia first had 10 weekly fights in 2016. While it did not operate continuously, 86 weeks had that many services, ending in early 2020. The extra operation was almost always by the 270-seat 787-8, but now it’s by the 321-seat 777-200LR, providing additional freight and baggage space. I previously showed that Ethiopian operates the world’s shortest 777-200LR flight.
Notice the timings
The ‘new’ flights will leave Addis Ababa at 12:30 and return nearly 23 hours later at 11:05. This misses the Star Alliance carrier’s main Africa-bound departure bank of flights. These roughly depart from Addis Ababa between 08:00 and 11:00, with services going to more than 55 international cities across the vast continent.
It also misses the main bank of arrivals from across Africa, primarily arriving between 19:00 and 21:30. The daily 777-300ER-operated ET606/ET607 serves these enormous banks.
You might think the extra flights are timed to feed Ethiopian’s small but growing third wave at its Addis Ababa hub, but it is not this simple. The 12:30 departure from Ethiopia is too early, so it will be fed by virtually no inbound international flight from across Africa with a particularly competitive connection time.
Aside from services from other cities in Ethiopia, which have little demand to/from China, Harare is the last international arrival at 07:55. It suggests that the outbound service to Guangzhou may struggle with traffic and/or yields. In previous years, it either left at 09:45 or 15:10, both fed by more arrivals.
It is somewhat different on the way back. By arriving at 11:05, passengers can transit to 10+ destinations between 13:20 and 15:00, with some, like Accra and Entebbe, in the top markets list.
Where Guangzhou passengers go
Analysis of booking data for July 2023 shows that more than 17,000 Guangzhou passengers (around 548 daily) transited to other flights over Addis Ababa. Nigeria was by far the most popular market, with nearly three times as many passengers as number two, the DRC. At the city level, Guangzhou-Enugu was first, then Lagos, Douala, Harare, Accra, Abuja, Entebbe, Kinshasa, Kigali, and Dakar.