In this installment of Wednesday Route Highlight we will continue our focus on routes to/from Africa. I have previously written about Air Madagascar (read here), Air Namibia (read here), and TAP Portugal’s (read here) interesting routes to the continent. Today, we will be taking a look at Ethiopian Airlines’ service between New York (Newark) and Lome (LFW); the capital and largest city in Togo.
As always, if you have any suggestions for a specific route that I should highlight, feel free to leave it below in the comments.
The Newark-Lome sector has been granted to Ethiopian as a fifth freedom route, which allows them to transport passengers directly between the U.S.A. and Togo. In actuality, the full flight (with the continuation on to Addis Ababa) looks like this:
Ethiopian operates this EWR-LFW sector 3x weekly year round (Tuesdays, Fridays, and Sundays from EWR) aboard its Boeing 787-8 aircraft. Ethiopian outfits this plane in a 2 class configuration consisting of 24 (Angle flat) “Cloud Nine” business class seats in a 2-2-2 layout followed by 246 standard economy class seats in a 3-3-3 layout.
Its pretty disappointing that ET elected to equip these state of the art aircraft with angle flat seats in business class and no wifi, although besides that there is not much else to complain about. Regardless of class of service, each passenger has access to seat-back entertainment and power ports to keep personal electronic devices fully charged.
Heres business class on the 787-8:
And here are some photos of economy class:
Ethiopian was one of the first operators of the 787, and now has a total of 19 in their fleet (all -8 variants). This is expected to change soon, as the airline will be taking delivery of 4 of the larger 787-9 variants.
Impressively, thats not all that Ethiopian has going for its fleet. The airline is in the process of receiving 24 A350-900 aircraft, of which it has already received 5 airframes. The airline is also slated for 30 737 MAX 8’s, in an effort to renew its narrow-body fleet. I will also note that the airline has 4 777-300ER’s and 6 777-200LR’s, in addition to a mix of 737’s, 767’s and Bombardier Dash 8’s to round out its fleet.
In my opinion, their robust fleet renewal and standard amenities regardless of class makes them one of the more formidable carriers in Africa, if not the best. I mean, they were just voted the best airline in Africa by Airline Economics Magazine, if that means anything to you.
To the Point!
Based out of the East Coast, I would love to try Ethiopian’s unique route between New York and Togo. The only European carriers that fly to Lome are Air France (Paris via Niamey), Brussels Airlines (Brussels via Accra), and TAP Portugal (Lisbon via Accra). In addition, there are only 9 airlines in total that fly to the country’s capital so it is very unique to think that the country has a direct link to the United States.
Ethiopian sounds like a great airline from what I have heard. No, they aren’t going to spoil you like on Emirates, Etihad, or Singapore Airlines, but they offer some very interesting routes and great connectivity throughout Africa and Asia.
*Featured Image Courtesy of This is Africa
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