Ethiopian To Add Flights To New York In 2016

Ben;

My understanding is that Dublin is used because of restrictions at Addis, due to its height & hot climate. Before Ethiopian started using DUB as a stop, the company had a similar tech stop at Rome, Italy. The DUB-LAX dynamic will change when Aer Lingus commence their Dublin-LAX route.

Michael

@lucky, you state " fuel costs are significantly lower operating two ~7 hour flights rather than one ~14 hour flight. ". Just curious. Aren't take offs and climbs to altitude use most of the fuel? Would the 14 hours flight with one take off use much less fuel than two 7 hours flights with two takeoffs?

@Endre, you're correct that takeoff and climb consumes significantly more fuel than high altitude cruise settings, but on long haul flights the majority of fuel is consumed at cruise, the bulk of the flight time. I had to think about Lucky's claim for a moment as well, because all things being equal two 7 hour flights would consume more fuel than one 14 hour flight for the reasons you state. But all things aren't equal. On a 14 hour flight the aircraft has to cary 14 hours worth of fuel, plus the required trans-oceanic and IFR reserves, which depending on the aircraft means the tanks are probably filled to the brim. This means the aircraft is at its MTOW and is flying heavy for most of the flight, requiring more fuel on takeoff, cruise climb, AND level cruise power settings. Split that flight in two and the aircraft need only cary half the fuel load plus the legally required reserves. The significant reduction in weight and the associated reduction in fuel consumption far outweigh the fuel consumed during the second takeoff/climb.

Pick up rights? Surely Ben's intern must have written this. Ben would have used the correct term: fifth freedom rights.

"Quadrupling longhaul capacity in 14 years isn’t exactly reflective of the market"

I REALLY despise seeing analysis like that - it's all over the "normal" media too!

No, quadrupling in 14 years isn't reflective - but quadrupling from a small number to a bigger small number is hardly astronomical growth. If Ethiopian only grew at "reflective rates" then they'd be waiting decades to get anywhere.

As they say, you can distort stats to say anything you want them to!

Do these flights allow you to clear immigration in Dublin? So the whole plane lands as a domestic arrival in the US. If that's the case it would have a massive selling point, like the all business BA001 flight from LCY to JFK, which stops in Shannon to refuel and clear customs.

Does nobody remember that ET used to already serve Newark in 2004-5 but pulled out to focus on IAD instead?

It is better to have stopover in other European cities to improve the connection time from Asia, with battle the 3 MEs.

@Endre

There is also how much crew is needed. 7H could be done with flight crew of 2, while 14H would probably require 3. Crew costs is also a factor, and might be cheaper if they can do a crew change in DUB.

Have read that around 12H of flight time is the point after which cost go up significant with today's airplanes.

Also ET recently bought a number of early produced 787's (aka the terrible teens) that have been stored since the 787 program started from Boeing at a steep discount.

Due to extra weight in plane body from rework need to get the planes up to the 787 spec used for FAA certification these planes also have about 1000nmi less range than other 788's.

"Also ET recently bought a number of early produced 787’s (aka the terrible teens) that have been stored since the 787 program started from Boeing at a steep discount.

Due to extra weight in plane body from rework need to get the planes up to the 787 spec used for FAA certification these planes also have about 1000nmi less range than other 7"

Oh really? That's interesting. I fly out of Paine Field where the 787 is built. As you said there were a number of aircraft that came off the assembly line before these revisions were made and they set them aside until there was enough slack in the production schedule to run them back through the line. That was YEARS ago and those planes never went back into the plant. The only problem is even at a place like Paine Field, home to the worlds largest (by volume) building, there isn't enough room to store a bunch of wide body aircraft except on one of the runways. So since I began my flight training the crosswind runway, 11/29, has had a half dozen engineless 787s (and a couple of 747-8s, but those are gone now) stacked nose-to-tail. They can be seen here: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Paine+Field+Airport/@47.9070334,-122.2837673,878m/data=!3m2!1e3!4b1!4m2!3m1!1s0x54900159b82b97fd:0x4e3571c12e342514!6m1!1e1 (funny...I can tell what day that image was taken. There was one day when for some reason all our Cessna 172s ended up parked facing the opposite direction they normally do, and that's how they're parked in that image.)

I haven't been up there in over a month so I'll be curious to see if they're gone. It'll be weird having a crosswind runway (although I understand they hardly ever used it before it was converted to a parking lot). As a student pilot it's actually been quite advantageous not having use of 11/29. I've become rather proficient at crosswind landings.

They should have a stop in LIS. It is also a *A hub, which would give them connectivity if they had fifth freedom rights. Don't know about the costs of fuel and landing fees, though

@markiteight
Might not be gone yet from Paine Field, ET would need to arrange for engines and interior plus crew training. Will probably be phased in over the next couple of years hence starting flights in 2016 and 2017.
http://airwaysnews.com/blog/2015/06/17/paris-air-show-ethiopian-takes-terrible-teens-787s-from-boeing/