Ethiopian Airlines will this weekend introduce domestic flights from its Bole International Airport hub in Addis Ababa and the city of Semera, the capital of the Regional State of Afar located in the North Eastern part of Ethiopia. The airline is to introduce a three times weekly service from December 14, 2013 using a Bombardier Dash 8Q-400 turboprop.
The flights are part of a growing domestic and regional network at the East African carrier following the formation of Ethiopian Regional Services, one of the seven strategic businesses units of Ethiopian Airlines Group that was established as part of its Vision 2025 strategic roadmap to cater to the growing domestic and regional travel needs.
“As the national carrier of Ethiopia, we have a duty to establish extensive domestic network and air connectivity that enables the flow of tourism, business, investment and trade to all parts of the country,” said Tewolde Gebremariam, chief executive officer, Ethiopian Airlines Group.
Ethiopian Regional Services currently covers 18 domestic points giving it the largest domestic network across all of Africa and its growth into Semera will be supported by demand within the region’s growing mining and tourism industry. “Now that Semera airport is ready, we are very happy to start our flights and to support the region’s economic development,” added Gebremariam.
Semera is a new town on the Awash–Asseb highway in north-east Ethiopia that has replaced Asaita as the capital of the Afar Region. According to government statistics it was home to just 2,625 residents in 2007 but that number is understood to have grown significantly in the subsequent six years. It is one of five towns in the Dubti woredas (third-tier administrative districts) which Central Statistical Agency data from 2007 says is home to a population of 65,342 people.
The wider Afar region is well known for its early hominid fossil finds including 'Lucy', an Australopithecus afarensis, discovered in 1974, who lived about 3.2 million years ago, and more recently the Grandfather of Lucy’ dubbed “Kadanuumuu”, which means "big man" in Afar language and which dates back from 3.5 - 3.8 million years ago.
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