Stock Markets Surge on Signs of Progress: Live Updates

April 17, 2020
Business

The airline has lost more than $500 million since January and has suspended over 90 percent of its passenger operations. But the state-owned carrier hopes to keep making money for now partly by boosting its cargo business, its chief executive officer, Tewolde GebreMariam, said in an interview on Thursday. This would include transporting goods between Africa and Europe and Asia, and distributing across Africa medical and humanitarian supplies to deal with the virus donated by the Chinese billionaire Jack Ma, United Nations agencies, and others.

But that won’t sustain the airline beyond July, Mr. Tewolde said, adding that he wasn’t certain government officials would offer financial backing given all the “pressing priorities” they had at hand.

With 85 confirmed cases and three deaths as of Thursday, Ethiopia has declared a state of emergency to fight the pandemic. About 8.5 million of the nation’s 110 million people also face severe acute food insecurity. The World Health Organization has warned Africa could be the next epicenter of the virus, with cases expected to surge to 10 million within three to six months.

Mr. Tewolde, however, remained bullish on the airline’s ability to eventually rebound, saying it hadn’t canceled any fleet orders with Boeing or Airbus. He also denied reports of furloughing staff, saying that the airline still had 14,000 employees on its payroll. “We strongly believe that short-term shocks like this should not derail us from the long-term strategy,” he said.