On the afternoon of March 30, Flight ET684 of Ethiopian Airlines, after more than 10 hours of long-range flight, smoothly landed at Shanghai Pudong International Airport. This not only marked the operation of a direct flight between Addis Ababa, capital of Ethiopia, and Shanghai, but also the first direct flight between Shanghai and the African continent.

     Located in the eastern part of Africa, Addis Ababa is the main gateway to the African continent. By the flight of Ethiopian Airlines, passengers can easily and conveniently transfer from Bole International Airport in Addis Ababa to 48 major cities in other African countries, such as Nairobi, Kenya, Johannesburg, South Africa, and Entebbe, Uganda. African guests also have the opportunity to transfer from Shanghai Pudong International Airport to hundreds of destinations in China and Northeast Asia.

    According to reports, Ethiopian Airlines uses the latest Boeing 787 Dreamliner on the Shanghai-Addis Ababa route, which has 24 business class seats and 246 economy class seats. The route is scheduled to run every day. The daily departure time from Addis Ababa is 23:30 local time, while the return flight from Shanghai is 0:35 at midnight Beijing time.

   The direct flight from Shanghai to Addis Ababa has ended the history of Shanghai’s long-term lack of direct access to the African continent, and has built an air bridge between Shanghai and the African continent, which is expected to further strengthen the trade and tourism between the two sides.
    In fact, as early as 41 years ago, on February 22, 1973, an aircraft of Ethiopian Airlines landed at Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport for the first time. Since then, Ethiopian Airlines has used Boeing 707 passenger aircraft to build the Addis Ababa-Bombay-Shanghai route; only because of the limited conditions, no direct flight was operated between these two places and the flight volume could not be compared with that at present. Ethiopian Airlines is the fourth airline in the world to open a route to and from China. Since 1973, Ethiopian Airlines has been serving the Chinese market for more than 40 years. Today, Ethiopian Airlines offers 28 flights each week to Addis Ababa from four cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou and Guangzhou.

   The African continent has always been a point that the route network of Shanghai Pudong International Airport fails to touch and it is expected that Kenya Airlines will also open a route from Shanghai to Nairobi in August this year. These two major hub airlines in Africa help Shanghai say goodbye to the history of the need to connect the African route network through Europe and the Middle East; the key network nodes for aviation hub of Shanghai Pudong International Airport have been supplemented and strengthened. (CAACNEWS, reported by Bai Pei)