“Ethiopian is growing fast at a turbulent time”

The global airline industry is traversing a turbulent time. In the wake of the Arab revolution, the price of fuel is soaring. The price of a barrel of crude oil has been hovering around 120 dollars. Fuel expense accounts for 50 percent of an airline’s total expense. The global economic crisis is like adding salt to a wound for the airline business. A number of major international carriers have declared bankruptcy.

Some have even ceased operation. Despite all the challenges, Ethiopian Airlines has sustained its profitability. In fact it is growing at a faster rate at this trying time. Tewolde Gebremariam, chief executive officer of Ethiopian Airlines, spoke to Kaleyesus Bekele of The Reporter.

The Reporter: It has been over two years since you began implementing the Vision 2025 development strategy. Tell us about its progress.

Tewolde Gebremariam: Now we are in the third financial year since we began implementing Vision 2025. We drafted the Vision 2025 development strategy after evaluating the achievements of Vision 2010. When we were drafting Vision 2025 we assumed that the world economic growth will be sustained. There is what we call a two-leg economic growth. There are countries whose economy is growing at a fast rate while others’ economy has matured and their economic growth pace is slow. Countries like China, India, Asia as a whole, Africa, Middle East and South America are growing fast. The economic growth in Europe and America has slackened. Europeans are almost in recession.

We anticipated that America and Europe will recover soon as they did in 2008. The reports of the World Bank and the IMF made similar projections. But things turned out the other way. The US economy is recovering slowly. The situation in Europe is worse. So we were forced to focus on Asia and the Middle East. Despite all the challenges, we are doing well in implementing Vision 2025. When we drafted Vision 2010 people were skeptical. They doubted if we would achieve the goals we set. They said it was too ambitious. The same remarks were made when we introduced Vision 2025. But we are achieving the goals. Read more