Ethiopian Airlines (ET) August 2025 Operational Report

Flight Activity Overview

Total arriving flights: 11,307

Year-over-year change: -10.06%

Ethiopian Airlines handled a substantial schedule in August, yet arriving flights decreased year over year. The softer count reflects capacity rebalancing on certain African–Europe and African–Middle East corridors during late‑summer travel, as well as seasonal traffic shifts after early‑peak flows. The airline has focused on protecting connectivity at Addis Ababa while trimming thinner rotations, a strategy aimed at preserving yield and stabilizing load factors.

On-Time Performance and Cancellations

On-time arrival rate: 78.15%

Change in on-time rate: -7.97 percentage points

Cancelled flights: 59

Year-over-year change (cancellations): -39.18%

Punctuality for arriving flights settled at a level below last year, and the year‑over‑year gap widened. Monsoon weather around East Africa, episodic air‑traffic‑flow restrictions across regional airspace, and ground‑handling bottlenecks at peak hours weighed on operations. In response, the carrier is reinforcing turn‑time discipline, deploying additional reserve aircraft during overnight wave banks, and advancing line‑maintenance planning to reduce downstream knock‑on delays.

Key Hubs

Addis Ababa Bole International Airport remains the core hub, structuring banks that connect West, East, and Southern Africa to Europe and Asia with single‑stop itineraries. Feeder services from regional capitals continue to anchor the morning and late‑night waves, supporting long‑haul departures and arrivals. The network emphasizes minimum‑connect times and schedule symmetry to protect onward connections during weather or flow‑control events.

Outlook

For travelers, Ethiopian Airlines offers broad African coverage with extensive one‑stop options; those with tight itineraries should allow adequate connection time during late‑evening peaks at Addis Ababa. Operationally, the airline targets a gradual improvement in punctuality as seasonal storms taper and resource buffers scale up, while cancellations remain comparatively low. Industry readers can expect capacity to be redeployed selectively into resilient city‑pairs and additional customer‑experience upgrades on the transfer journey.