Ethiopian Airlines is capturing increasing volumes of traffic from the South African market, with travellers opting for its affordable connections to destinations across Europe, the US and parts of Asia, amid the Middle East conflict.
Sue Garrett, the GM of Supply, Pricing and Marketing at Flight Centre South Africa, noted that Ethiopian Airlines had emerged as a strong alternative for South African travellers and that Flight Centre had noticed a 110% increase in its Ethiopian bookings since the beginning of March.
“African carriers are probably benefiting the most, amid the Middle East conflict, because they likely had more capacity on their European routes than the European carriers themselves,” explained Marco Ciocchetti, CEO of XL Travel.
“While the European carriers would have been the first alternative option, they were quite full because, prior to the conflict, people going to Europe would have either flown predominantly via the Middle East or on European carriers. But now, travellers are prepared to use the African carriers as well to get into Europe.”
Stefan van der Merwe, CEO of Sure Travel, noted that Sure Travel had seen a similar increase. Van der Merwe explained that Ethiopian had become the best alternative African carrier, alongside the likes of RwandAir and Kenya Airways, because it offered the most extensive network.
Despite the increase in Ethiopian bookings among travel agents, David van den Heever-Liebenberg, Travel Director and Co-Founder of Mr and Mr Jones Boutique Travel Management, notes that some of his clients are not open to travelling with the airline.
“Indeed, we have seen an uptake on Ethiopian Airlines as well in terms of quoting as it does provide a cheaper alternative. But the inability to get hold of Ethiopian timeously and their lengthy reply time to emails is prohibitive in supporting them as an airline, unfortunately,” said Van den Heever-Liebenberg.
Ethiopian’s quiet domination
A Travel News analysis of IATA Direct Data Solutions statistics revealed that, long before the recent Middle East conflict, Ethiopian Airlines was capturing an increasingly large share of South African passengers travelling on its global network.
Central Asia
Ethiopian Airlines is South Africa’s number-one carrier for flights to India.
In 2025, Ethiopian transported over 69 000 passengers on the Johannesburg-Mumbai route via Addis Ababa.
Aviation consultant, Sean Mendis, noted that this was about the same number of passengers that Qantas transported between Johannesburg and Sydney in a year on its direct flights.
Middle East
Prior to the Middle East conflict, Ethiopian was strategically supporting the South African market’s demand for connectivity with key heritage and religious destinations in the Middle East and Levant, including Tel Aviv, Jeddah, Riyadh and Medina.
“Ethiopian became South Africa’s dominant carrier for traffic to Israel because it was one of the few carriers who never suspended Israel operations when the region initially fell into conflict in 2024,” explained Mendis.
Additionally, he noted that passenger numbers on Ethiopian’s Saudi Arabian routes had grown by over 150% over the past two years.
Europe
Ethiopian’s presence on routes between South Africa and European destinations was seeing continuous growth, with increased demand for connectivity with Brussels, Vienna, Rome, Milan and more.
In 2025, Ethiopian transported about 53 000 South Africans to Brussels, 22 000 on its Rome route, 14 200 on its Athens route, 16 700 passengers on its Cape Town-Vienna route and 12 000 passengers on its Cape Town-Milan route.
Mendis noted that the data revealed a pattern where Ethiopian’s Cape Town market significantly subsidised its European routes, while its Johannesburg routes saw more traffic on Middle East and Asian routes.
UK
Last year, Ethiopian was the largest indirect carrier for passengers between the UK and South Africa, serving about 39 000 passengers, just overtaking Emirates’ 38 000 passengers.
Its London Gatwick route saw about 14 000 from the Johannesburg market, and its London Heathrow route from Cape Town served over 14 200 travellers. The airline also transported a combined 15 800 passengers from South Africa to Manchester.
US
While the US carriers, Delta Air Lines and United, offering direct flights to South Africa still dominate the market between the countries, Ethiopian is the third-largest carrier for traffic between South Africa and the US.
“United is number one, Delta number two, Ethiopian number three and then Emirates and Qatar, British Airways, Air France KLM, and Turkish,” said Mendis.
