Ethiopian Airlines – a flexible Star Alliance Carrier
Africa – it’s not exactly a place where one can stick to a schedule or have firm plans. And that’s usually fine. As they say in Swahili, “pole, pole” – slow, slow, take it easy. Years ago some friends and I were traveling from Victoria Falls to Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe when the bus stopped in the little town of Dete to drop off passengers. We saw a treehouse lodge. We had already paid for reservations at a lodge inside the park, but staying in a treehouse? Very cool. So we quickly hopped off the bus. The lodge was actually closed for a few weeks because of feared election violence, but we found the manager and he agreed to open it just for us. He got the treehouses ready. He found a cook for us. He took us on game drives. Hearing elephants heading to the watering hole practically underneath the treehouses in the middle of the night was amazing.
But for all of the flexibility that dominates life in Africa, a major airline there must operate differently, right? Especially the national carrier of the world’s most populous landlocked nation and a member of the Star Alliance, a group of airlines that includes United, Lufthansa, Air New Zealand and Singapore Air? Ethiopian Airlines is the carrier in question. And as I learned, one must be careful with assumptions.
When heading to Ethiopia this month on a National Geographic expedition, I had a lot of options as to carriers and routing. I chose to book a business class ticket from Los Angeles to Muscat, Oman on Lufthansa and then an economy class ticket from Muscat to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on Ethiopian Airlines. It was the best travel/seat option for the best price. And because of the timing of the flights, I would have a day and a half in Oman on the way home – a chance to see a new country. I booked a hotel there for two nights and a full-day tour of Wadi Shab and Muscat.
Everything went perfectly on the way to Addis. Even though I technically had two plane tickets, Lufthansa (a Star Alliance partner with Ethiopian) booked my bag straight through to Addis with the connection. Ethiopian even upgraded me to Business. All was well.
Your Flight is Cancelled
Then the fun started. A few days into the trip, and right before I would be heading to the Omo Valley for five nights with no internet or cell coverage, Ethiopian cancelled my flight to Oman. This was ten full days before the September 27th flight. No matter that they had accepted my payment for a ticket to Oman on September 27th – they simply removed the flight from their schedule. My assumption is that this was for business reasons – i.e. not enough people had purchased tickets, so it didn’t make economic sense to fly. It’s a nice, flexible way to run an airline. Except if you’re the customer holding a ticket.
Ethiopian Airlines Customer Service booked me on their next flight to Muscat – on September 29th. The only problem is that it would have gotten me to Muscat four hours after my flight to Frankfurt departed. If this had been on one reservation, it would have been easy – Ethiopian would have been obligated to work with Lufthansa to rebook the entire thing. But with two tickets, things were different. From the Omo Valley with no communications, I relied on my local tour operator to call the airline. Would Ethiopian book me on another airline to Muscat on the 27th or 28th? Nope. Would they work with Lufthansa to rebook me directly back to Los Angeles from Addis? Nope. Would they at least refund the unused portion of the Muscat-Addis round-trip ticket if I changed my routing due to their flight cancellation? Nope. They said that I could fly to Muscat on any flight that they operated, and actually emphasized how great it was that I could choose the day that I wanted to fly. Nice and flexible! Except that there were no Ethiopian flights that would meet my date requirements. In the end I paid a large change fee to rebook back to LA from Addis on the 27th.
Rerouting? Why Not?
But Ethiopian Airlines kept surprising me. From Arba Minch on the 24th we were supposed to fly to Addis. The original reservation showed an arrival into Addis at 2:25pm, on flight ET135. But they decided to switch it up. They changed the flight number to ET133 and added a stop…in Asosa, near the border with Sudan. Now look at the map below from the in-flight magazine. Arba Minch to Asosa isn’t even a route that they fly. Nice and flexible! This is the equivalent of having a plane ticket from Albuquerque to Denver and the airline unexpectedly making a detour to Los Angeles to pick up a few passengers. We arrived after 6pm.
Dates? Not Important.
Ah, but the best was yet to come. My rebooked flight from Addis to LA was scheduled to depart at 11:59pm on September 27th – the first leg being on Ethiopian Air to Frankfurt. Ethiopian changed the departure to 12:10am on September 28th. No problem – it’s only 11 minutes later. But when I arrived at the airport to check in, I was told that I had been booked on the flight 24 hours earlier and therefore missed my flight! Yes, they changed their departure from late on the 27th to early on the 28th, but their system left me on the 27th – at 12:10am that morning. Nice! Luckily I had a copy of my reservation (from the amazing folks at Cranky Concierge) showing that I was definitely scheduled on their flight arriving into Frankfurt at 6am on the 28th. After roughly 20 minutes they agreed to rebook me (!) on that night’s flight, and all went smoothly after that.
Ethiopian Airlines Lessons Learned
So what did I take away from my experiences with Ethiopian?
1) Avoid booking separate tickets on international itineraries if at all possible. I thought I was being smart, saving money flying to Oman on Lufthansa and then to Addis on Ethiopian. But when Ethiopian cancelled their flight, even though I had given myself a window of almost two days, it still wasn’t enough, and the $1000+ change fee completely wiped out the money I had saved by routing through Muscat, and then some.
2) Be flexible with your plans in Ethiopia! A noon arrival can easily turn into 4pm or later depending on the exact route that Ethiopian decides to fly that day based on business conditions.
3) Don’t get more than you need to out of the ATM. When passing through Muscat mid-month, I took out the equivalent of $200 in Omani Rials. Smart, right? I would need money for taxis, meals and shopping on my two-day layover, so I got it in advance to avoid any hassles on arrival. Then Ethiopian cancelled my flight and I rerouted away from Oman and…I still have a lot of Rials that I have no idea if I’ll ever spend. Anyone heading to Oman soon?
Maybe the airline saga is an African thing? While in Johannesburg South African Airways weren’t being very customer focused when dealing with, what looked like, over booking on flights to Europe. Fortunately for me I was heading from Buenos Aires to Perth with no issues (although I notice that SAA have now removed Buenos Aires to Johannesburg from their schedule so I won’t be doing that again).
I’m sure you’ll get to Oman soon enough to spend those Rials. The Hajar mountains are beautiful and well worth visiting. Your challenge, should you wish to accept it :-), is to work out if it can be made into a kid friendly trip.
Not so sure it was a wise thing to read this blog right before I’m scheduled to depart for an international trip where I booked three separate tickets! Cleveland to Chicago — Chicago to Tokyo and Tokyo to Taipei and . . you really don’t want to know about the return flight. I arrive in Chicago Midway with 5 hours to get to O’Hare. It really, really should be enough time, right? 🙂 Really enjoy reading your blogs!
It works most of the time, and is usually worth the savings. A few years ago I flew United from San Francisco to Hong Kong, went through passport control, got my suitcase, went out to Departures, checked in at Cathay Pacific, went back through passport control and headed to my departure gate (to Delhi) all in under an hour. As long as flights are on time and you’re not flying a flexible airline like Ethiopian you should have no problems. But there are obviously risks and the airlines may or may not be willing to talk to each other and work things out if there is a hiccup. Five hours should be easily enough time to go from Midway to O’Hare. But it never hurts to download your airline’s App so that you can easily check their flight schedules on route, or give them a call, if it looks like there’s going to be an issue.
I am not surprised at all to hear Ethiopia Airlines conducted themselves in that way. We traveled to Malawi from the USA in August 2012 via Ethiopia Airlines. When we got to DC we were forced to check our carry on baggage. Only to arrive and find our locked luggage had been broken into and electronics and clothing stolen. During the trip the flight stewardess poured tea into one passengers cup and after the passenger took a sip and told the flight attendant they wanted coffee not tea she snatched the cup poured the contents BACK into the main pitcher, continued serving the remainder of the plane out of that pitcher and returned to the passenger almost an hour later. When trying to deal with customer service it was a nightmare. I vowed to find other ways to travel to avoid them. Sadly I think they are the only option as of now.
Wow, that’s horrible! Most of my flights with them were internal and other than creative flight departure times and rerouting, the service was fine and they didn’t hassle any of us about our 30-pound carry ons. I guess we got lucky. Not quite sure what standards, if any, the Star Alliance has for admitting airlines. They definitely don’t seem to meet international standards. They’re still, a month later, fighting my request for mileage credit from Addis to Frankfurt. Good luck with your future flights with them!
You sound as if you have never seen cancellations or delays in your western world. And you have never had cancellations or delays in any of the European or American airlines. Such things only happen in the continent of Africa. You are an absolute liar and you can not swallow the fact that this is time for Africa and it is on the rise. It will surely have globally competitive airlines and many more success stories.
Hi Dillen – what is it that I’m lying about? I love Africa and am actively planning two return trips right now. I have flown literally thousands of flights in the “western world” as well as in Africa, Asia and elsewhere, and I’ve never before had an airline cancel a flight 10 days before departure and not be willing to do anything from a customer service perspective to make it right. That’s what this comes down to. Airlines typically cancel flights for weather or mechanical reasons. But neither of those would apply 10 days before a flight. So the airline cancelled the flight for business reasons which absolutely screwed me, and they didn’t offer any help in re-booking me. They’re a Star Alliance airline! They could have easily talked to Lufthansa and re-booked me back from Addis, but they weren’t willing to do that. I’m great with African airlines and I’m sure you’re right that many airlines are successful and will be successful moving forward. But a little customer service would be nice in the process.
Dillen,
Your knee-jerk reaction after reading this article is proof that you know that all is not well with aviation, safety and customer service in Africa. Africa has a very long way to go before it can claim its space as a respectable aviation continent.
African airlines are normally run and owned by their governments. Governance in Africa is rather wanting. You can ignore the fact that political cadres are appointed to run airlines and they make a shambles of it because of no or little experience but Africans always claim respect as being at the core of their culture. So I’m not sure why ‘respect’ for the paying passenger goes out the window after the cash has been received. I live in Africa and am exceptionally particular with whom I fly. SAA is permanently bankrupt and incompetent political appointments at board level has held the airline in crisis for years. I refuse to fly them. I believe that chaos in the Boardroom means chaos in the aircraft service workshop.
Also interesting is the high number of African airlines who may not fly to the EU. Have a look Dillen – perhaps you can explain this – http://ec.europa.eu/transport/modes/air/safety/air-ban/doc/list_en.pdf
Thanks for the informative posts travelbabbo!
Ha, found this aged post that I think I should have read it well before choosing Ethiopian…
An extremely cheap bargain: less than 520 USD for a round trip ticket from Hong Kong to Sao Paulo.
But flights have already been cancelled/rescheduled for 2 times in 2 months (if this helps, I were notified on 20th each time, perhaps the date they review their schedule?)
Still have about a month before actually flying on 18th.
Let’s just hope no more surprise… Just have to rebook and rebook my hotels again…
Thanks for the email Ray – that’s good to know that they may be systematically evaluating their schedule on the 20th each month. Good luck with your flights! Ethiopian has been great to fly, and our experience going from Frankfurt to Arusha via Addis earlier this year was great. But they sure seem to casually make flight adjustments when it suits them.
Well, Ethiopian is still the same.
I am holding an ET ticket from Ouagadougou to Johannesburg via Addis. On the return, I had to hurry back to get to work for a day before a holiday week, so I booked JNB-ADD-Lome-OUA with the JNB-ADD redeye in business so I could sleep.
Ethiopian has just cancelled the ADD-Lome leg (two weeks in advance), and offered me an overnight in ADD and a seat on ADD-OUA the next day. Problem is, that gets me back to OUA a day later, just as my holiday is starting, so I told them I’d rather stay in SA and return from Joberg a week later than originally planned.
They said there was nothing wrong with my JNB-ADD ticket, so if I wanted to return a week later, I had to cancel my ticket and rebook…with no refund but at least they would apply the old ticket cost to the new ticket, with a $187 penalty.
Here’s the trick; if I book the new ticket entirely in economy, the ticket cost plus the penalty is $350 less than my original ticket…but they wont refund the difference. But if I book the return in Business, as before, the new ticket plus the penalty is $400 more than before, and I have to pay it.
So they get you both ways. I’m not entirely sure that they didn’t cancel the ADD-Lome leg specifically to get people to rebook, for a penalty.
I’m sorry to hear that Myron. I can’t speak to Ethiopian’s motivations behind cancelling flights and not offering any sort of customer service, but it sure seems to be a regular occurrence. I appreciate you commenting here as an additional warning to people.
Ethiopian has a peculiar character of its own. It’s an African institution. It keeps flying through coups and upheavals. It get you there. It is a very large airline which makes money unlike poor Kenya Airways, a much better airline which feels more First World, though it is poorly managed. ET offers incredibly low fares on certain complicated routings. It is however exceptionally prone to switch aircraft types and departure times at the last minute so you have to think of your flight more as a statement of intent than a reality and understand that if your 787 becomes a 737 (aircraft switches often defy logic) your seat assignment will become irrelevant. All of this is acceptable. But woe betide you if you want to make changes. Its call center is usually a disaster, mainly because few of its staff speak understandable English. This wouldn’t be so bad if they realised they’re only speaking a version of English, slowed down or tried to talk more clearly or loudly over Ethiopia’s appalling long distance circuits . Many of them act as if the fault lies with the customer. Moreover few of them sound as if they ever fly themselves so the basic logic of shovelling passengers through a hub they want to connect as fast as possible) is lost on them. Anything else? Addis airport at night is hell on earth, security does not seem thorough yet it is conducted by (presumably) military or police staff who can’t speak English and are often outright rude.
shit! i thought i was going crazy man. im from buenos aires. Had the same re schedule issue from EA. From a flight from foz iguazu brasil (5th january) to bankok. (via adis abeba) . and coming back february 16th.
i called the airline 2 times and could not understand what they were saying. And when i did. They always gave me nonsense answers that didn t apply to my actual questions. Crazy conversations 2 times. and both of them they hung up on me,. Please help guy how did you manage to fly? they still haven`t send me the new e-ticket.
Hey guys, I booked a flight with ET (MILAN-ROME-ADD-CAPE TOW) and as I can’t fly on that day, I called them asking for cancellation fee. When I bought the ticket cancellation fee was 150 $ now that I need to cancel it is 200 $. This is crazy. I am seriously waiting for them to cancel the flight (i hope so) , in order to get something more as refund. I don’t think they do things like cancel flights or moving scheduled time to make more money, simply it is not well managed. You can feel this when you call them: “One minute sir, let me check sir, ok sir….”. Crazy company…
Amazing find. Glad to know I’m not the only one. I was booked on a flight from Addis to New York, which when I went to check in at–no longer existed. They just weren’t operating that day! And never told me.
They suggested I just take a flight the next day. Not that I had to get to new york at a specific time or anything… oh and no one has any idea where my bag is.
I’m sorry Jim! Such a bizarre way to run an airline. I hope you’re able to get to New York and get your bag back. They’re a good airline when they actually fly…