Tewolde GebreMariam, Group CEO of Ethiopian Airlines, said in a statement today his carrier still “believes in” Boeing in spite of the B737 Max 8 plane that crashed and killed all 157 people on board. This has led to the global grounding of the 737 Max model. Boeing shares have also fallen down by 14 percent since the crash, which translates into $34 billion off the company's value.
Over two weeks after the Ethiopian Airlines flight 302 crash, Mr. Tewolde said, “We at Ethiopian Airlines will feel the pain forever.” He further noted that the Ethiopian people also feel this “very deeply” as Ethiopian is a flagship carrier that carries with it a sense of national and continental pride.
The CEO went on to affirm that this recent tragedy will not define Ethiopian. He further expressed a pledge “to work with Boeing and our colleagues in all the airlines to make air travel even safer.”
“As the largest aviation group on the continent of Africa, we represent The New Spirit of Africa and will continue to move forward. We are rated as a 4-star global airline with a high safety record and member of Star Alliance. That will not change,” Mr. Tewolde reaffirmed.
Commenting on Ethiopian’s long-standing relationship with Boeing, the CEO boldly stated: “Let me be clear: Ethiopian Airlines believes in Boeing.” He went on to add, “[Boeing] have been a partner of ours for many years. More than two-thirds of our fleet is Boeing. We were the first African airline to fly the 767, 757, 777-200LR, and we were the second nation in the world (after Japan) to take delivery of the 787 Dreamliner. Less than a month ago, we took delivery of yet another new two 737 cargo planes (a different version from the one that crashed). The plane that crashed was less than five months old. Despite the tragedy, Boeing and Ethiopian Airlines will continue to be linked well into the future.”
While pledging “full and transparent cooperation to discover what went wrong,” Tewolde also hit back at reports critical of Ethiopian’s safety record, specifically those by the New York Times and Washington Post, the former reporting the pilot of the doomed flight had not trained on a 737 MAX 8 simulator, while the latter had stated the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) received two complaints about Ethiopian’s training and safety record in 2015, before the 737 MAX 8 was in use. Tewolde slashed both, saying, “our pilots who fly the new model were trained on all appropriate simulators.” Ethiopian Airlines has further announced it will sue the two publications in question for “publishing baseless defamatory stories.”
Ethiopian Airlines, flying for over seventy years, is the largest carrier in Africa, and a globally reputable brand.
Top Image: Africa’s First Ethiopian B787-9 touches down at Addis Ababa Bole International Airport in September 2012
Sources: Ethiopian Airlines Press Release on 25 March, 2019; AFP; Fana BC
Image Source: Ethiopian Airlines
