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Ethiopian Airways Dreamliner

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mikey4444 | 08:48 Sat 13th Jul 2013 | News
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23298349

I am a bit confused here. How can a country like Ethiopia possibly afford to buy an extremely expensive airliner, when its population is constantly moving from one humanitarian crisis to another ?
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Well because it's one of the few profitable businesses that Ethiopia has. The airline does very well for itself and that in turn help the country since it's entirely state owned. They clearly need good planes to maintain their position as one of Africa's key flight carriers, so it's just good business sense and good for the Ethiopian people.
Profit of £26m in 2012 would help I should imagine.
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If you say so Shari, but it still looks a bit odd. Wasn't there a cheaper aircraft that could have done the job just as well ? Did the airline have to use the latest and most expensive aircraft ? Wouldn't the money saved be better used to feed its own people ?

It smacks of the "100 brand new Mercedes being sold to African countries" syndrome to me !
They're in business so they have to compete with other airlines. I doubt they'd get many takers if all they offered were beat up old crates to fly in!
Mikey this is a business,and one of the few solid ones that they have they have a very strong 15 year strategy to take more and more of the market. People don't fly business class in old rust buckets, they want to travel on flagship planes with every luxury and covenience, and that's what Ethiopian Airlines sells to. It would be disastrous to downgrade their fleet, and not in the interests of the people of Ethiopia at all. I don't think it's the same as the Mercedes analogy you put forward, this is a state owned business for the benefit of Ethiopia, the more they expand the better in both terms of profit, job creation and dragging the whole country out of povery and famine.
Come on Shari, stop posting reasonable logical answers. Can't you see mikey wants an unbalanced argument. Jeez.
Annual exports are about $1.5billion. You can buy a lot of aircraft for that.

A national airline, if run properly can also generate money rather than cost it.

You are probably basing your view on thirty years ago when there was a terrible drought and civil war. Since then, the Marxists have been booted out and the rains have come. So much so, that Ethipia is the biggest expirter of flowers in the world. Other expirts include livestock, Gold and other minerals.
Ethiopia's economy is based on agriculture, which accounts for 46% of GDP and 85% of total employment. Coffee has been a major export crop. The agricultural sector suffers from poor cultivation practices and frequent drought, but recent joint efforts by the Government of Ethiopia and donors have strengthened Ethiopia's agricultural resilience, contributing to a reduction in the number of Ethiopians threatened with starvation. The banking, insurance, and micro-credit industries are restricted to domestic investors, but Ethiopia has attracted significant foreign investment in textiles, leather, commercial agriculture and manufacturing. Under Ethiopia's constitution, the state owns all land and provides long-term leases to the tenants; land use certificates are now being issued in some areas so that tenants have more recognizable rights to continued occupancy and hence make more concerted efforts to improve their leaseholds. While GDP growth has remained high, per capita income is among the lowest in the world. Ethiopia's economy continues on its state-led Growth and Transformation Plan under its new leadership after Prime Minister Meles's death. The five-year economic plan has achieved high single-digit growth rates through government-led infrastructure expansion and commercial agriculture development. Ethiopia in 2013 plans to continue construction of its Grand Renassiance Dam on the Nile-the controversial multi-billion dollar effort to develop electricity for domestic consumption and export.
I must say, my sympathies are with mikey.

Yes....Ethopian Airlines IS a business and yes, it is in business to make money.......but where does the profit go?........certainly not to that 3rd world existence to which, I presume we send humanitarian aid.

Like many of these African countries, I doubt that the populace gets a fair shake of the dice.......unlike the wealthy.

I say this as a right wing Tory.

I'm not sure that's strictly true actually Sqad. anything good for the country as a whole has to also be good for individuals. And there is this about foreign aid too.

The Economist, November 3, 2007, "Briefing Ethiopia," p. 32

In November 2007 the magazine The Economist reported that there is tangible evidence that the foreign aid given to Ethiopia reaches the people it is meant to, based on a visit to the south of the country. Roads, schools and water systems are being built and "there are few complaints about corruption, a fact that continues to make Ethiopia popular with foreign donors".
Shari......well that is what the experts and economists say......but look at the documentaries on TV.......do they give you the picture of a "bristling" economy?

Dirty, dust, barren country with the majority of people, thin and eeking out a living and children dying of starvation.

I may have got it all wrong.

Of course there is massive poverty in Ethiopia but I don't think encouraging it's airline to fail by downgrading it's fleet is going to help much. The stronger the country gets as a whole the more wealth spreads. It's hard to change anything overnight, but I think you'll agree that the Ethiopia of tday is unrecognisable from the Ethiopia of 30 years ago, so straide in the right direction are being made.
* sorry for the typos i'm on a really naff touchscreen*
Shari

\\The stronger the country gets as a whole the more wealth spreads.\\

Right..........!!
If Ethiopia is doing so well let them dish out foreign aid to the rest of africa and save us doling it out

Oh come on Sqad, that's obvious, you're a happy capitalist you know that to be true.
If rich bloke A makes 2 million, he then expands his enterprises. He's not doing all that extra work himself so it creates jobs. Do you think the planes fly themselves, fuel themselves, maintain themselves? Wealth spreads purely because the rich get lazy.
LOl...Shari....no argument there.........however I have seen no evidence of "wealth spread to the poor" in Ethiopia.

Mind you, i have never been to Ethiopia, but just seen TV documentaries and read about the Ethiopean Pirates.....
It makes money, I realise that it's an alien concept to you socialist types!
Sqad, the pirates are Somalian. Ethiopian business is just as much a victim of that as anywhere else.
http://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/1569104/report-somali-pirates-attack-on-india-bound-ethiopian-ship-foiled
// Ethiopean Pirates //

I do not know if such things exist, but I Ethiopia is landlocked?

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