October 16, 2018 - Ethiopian Airlines just announced that it will start flying to Mogadishu, Somalia, effective 2 November 2018,according to press release sent to Ezega. The last time Ethiopian Airlines flew to Somalia was some 41 years ago.
Regarding the resumption of the Mogadishu flights, Mr. Tewolde Gebremariam, Group CEO of Ethiopian Airlines, said: “It gives us a great pleasure to resume flights to Mogadishu, the capital Somalia after stopping the service over four decades ago. I wish to express my gratitude to the Governments of Ethiopia and Somalia for making the resumption of these flights possible.
The flights will play a significant role in strengthening the people-to-people and economic ties between the two neighborly and sisterly countries. The flights will also enable the important Somali Diaspora in the Americas, Europe, Asia, Middle East, Europe and Africa to travel to their homeland via Addis Ababa thanks to our global network of over 116 international destinations.
Our flights will quickly grow to multiple daily flights given the huge volume of traffic between the two sisterly countries and the significant traffic between Somalia and the rest of the world.”
The resumption of the service to Somalia came 41 years after Ethiopian Airlines Group stopped its route to Mogadishu in the 1970s.
Ethiopian Airlines stopped flying to Somalia at the beginning of hostilities between Somalia and Ehiopia in1997-1978.
Somalia has had no stable government for nearly three decades. The country has since been ruled by warlords in different parts of the country. In what is called the Ogaden War, the then President of Somalia, Siad Barre, started military offensive against Ethiopia between July 1977 and March 1978 over the disputed Ethiopian region of Ogaden. The two countries fought for nearly a year, until Ethiopia drove out the invading forces in 1978.
Siad Barre was subsequently overthrown by ethnic uprsing in 1991 after which the country did not have a real central government until very recently.
The current president of Somalia, Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, has made considerable progress in stablizing the country, but still controls a limted part of the country.
Somaliland and Puntland are still autonomous regions and governed independently, desiring to be sovereign states although no one has recognized them yet.