Ethiopian Airlines has embarked on a service upgrade for its Bangkok-Addis Ababa route by deploying the Boeing 787 Dreamliner on the city pair.
The replacement of the ageing B767-300ER with the new-generation wide-body jet, starting on Aug 3, forms part of a strategy to tap growing traffic opportunities between Africa and Southeast Asia.
The upgrade is expected to boost the 70-year-old airline's passenger volumes on the route and strengthen Bangkok as Ethiopian's Southeast Asian hub.
The greater appeal of the B787 should enable Ethiopian to regain market leadership in the Thailand-Africa connection after losing momentum to arch rival Kenya Airways, which inaugurated Dreamliner flights from Nairobi to Bangkok in August 2014.
Meaza Taye, Ethiopian's manager for Thailand and Southeast Asia, told the Bangkok Post that the airline will use Bangkok as a springboard to launch new services to several Southeast Asian countries.
For starters, the carrier plans to extend the Addis Ababa-Bangkok service to Hanoi next summer, starting by the end of March, with three or four flights a week, Ms Taye said.
Ethiopian's daily flight between Addis Ababa and Bangkok has already been extended to Kuala Lumpur with three flights a week and Manila with four flights a week.
The Bangkok-Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok-Manila services have also been served by the same B787s which are operated on the Addis Ababa-Bangkok sector. Bangkok used to be a lay-over for Ethiopian's flights from Addis Ababa to Hong Kong and Guangzhou, both cities now served non-stop from the Ethiopian capital.
As part of Ethiopian's increasing footprint in Southeast Asia, the airline plans to launch non-stop flights from the Ethiopian capital to Singapore, with a continuation to Jakarta, in November.
To be operated by B787s, the Addis Ababa-Singapore-Jakarta service will commence with four flights a week before raising the frequency to a daily basis.
With the deployment of Dreamliners, Ethiopian hopes to see its load factor on Bangkok-Addis Ababa improve to 80% for the whole of 2016, compared to 70-75% last year.
The Dreamliner in Ethiopian Airlines' two-class cabin configuration offers 35 more seats in economy than the old aircraft bringing the capacity to 246, while the business-class seats remain the same at 24.
By operating advanced aircraft and with growing travel demand between Southeast Asia and Africa, there is a prospect for Ethiopian to raise the frequencies on Bangkok-Addis Ababa to 10-15 flights a week in the future, Ms Taye said.
The deployment of Ethiopian's B787 in Southeast Asia was considerably behind time due to the delay in delivery by Boeing and the airline's deliberate decision to operate the initial Dreamliners in its core African network, she said.