Ethiopian Airlines, Africa's largest carrier, is planning to start flying to three addtitional Chinese destinations, an Ethiopian official said on Saturday.

Dawit Temsgen, Communications Expert at Ethiopian, said Ethiopian Airlines is interested in opening up new routes to the Chinese cities of Chongqing, Shenzhen and Zhengzhou. He said the airline is "interested in expanding its network to Chongqing, Shenzhen and Zhengzhou and has requested permit to launch flights."

"Ethiopian and the Chinese government are working in collaboration to expedite the approval process and ET will start operation right away once it secures the permit," He observed.

Mr. Dawit went on to say that Ethiopian plans to expand its current operations to China by increasing its flight frequencies to popular destinations such as Guangzhou to twice daily.

Ethiopian currently flies daily from Addis Ababa to Guangzhou and Beijing, three-times-a-week to Chengdu. It also conducts daily passenger and cargo flights to Hong Kong and Shanghai.

Ethiopian Airlines is one of the first African carriers to start flight services to China.

Source: Xinhua