Ethiopian Group CEO, Ato Tewolde GebreMariam, shared the success of Ethiopian Airlines at the “Growth Frontiers” conference organized in Dublin, Ireland by Airline Economics. At the conference moderated by Nick Fadugba, CEO African Aviation Services Limited, Ato Tewolde discussed in depth ET’s success over the years in line with its strategic plans including Vision 2025.
Ato Tewolde said, “We have exceeded what we planned in vision 2010. That was a five-year strategic plan. And we came up with a 15 year strategic plan. Many in the industry agree that it is extremely difficult to plan for 15 years because the environment is very dynamic, operating systems change very frequently, and unpredictable events like oil prices keep changing very frequently. So the dominant opinion in the industry is that it is extremely difficult to plan even for 5 years because even our annual plan keeps changing. But after making a lot of analysis of the environment and also considering two main factors in the industry – that aviation is high capital intensive and high labor intensive industry, and both are difficult to plan in a short period of time – we came up with Vision 2025. We have now completed the first term of the Vision. And we have done very well and exceeded all our parameters.”
Ato Tewolde mentioned a range of factors for ET’s success in exceeding its targets. He said the fact that the Airline operates on a purely commercial terms though it is 100 percent owned by the government and its human resource development initiatives, which enabled it to produce highly skilled manpower, were among the factors which contributed to ET’s success. Cost management initiatives have also played their role in the remarkable achievements, according to the CEO. “It has been a very challenging five years but in the end, when we summarize what we have done, we have made Ethiopian Airlines the largest airline in the continent by all measurements,” Tewolde told the gathering in Dublin.
