June 13, 2019: Ethiopian Airlines will launch thrice weekly flights to Marseille, France from July 2 onwards.

“It gives us great pleasure to launch flights to Marseille, connecting France’s second largest city to the over 60 African destinations we serve, through our hub Addis Ababa. We’ve been flying to Paris since 1971, more than 48 years, so we are not new to the market in France. But we are very happy to expand our services closer to the customer in Marseille now. The connectivity we are establishing between Europe and Africa is facilitating trade investment, tourism and people-to-people ties,” said Tewolde GebreMariam, group CEO of Ethiopian Airlines.

Marseille marks Ethiopian’s 20th destination in Europe. Ethiopian is currently serving 120 international destinations across five continents with young aircraft with average fleet age of five years. It will also bring the number of passenger flights the airline operates to European cities to 60 per week.

Earlier in June, the French ambassador to Ethiopia, Frédéric Bontems, met GebreMariam, to confirm the agreement of the French authorities for the launch of flights between the airport Addis Ababa Bole International Airport and Marseille Provence Airport.

This air route was decided at the meetings of president Emmanuel Macron and prime minister Abiy Ahmed in October 2018 in Paris and March 2019 in Addis Ababa.

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