Ethiopian Airlines says it has lost about $137 million a week due to the ongoing war between the United States, Israel and Iran, which entered its eighth day on Saturday.
Lemma Yadhecha, its business manager, told local media that the airlines has suspended flights to ten destinations in the region, cancelling up to 15 passenger flights a day to the Middle East and the gulf region.
“The airline has canceled more than 100 flights a week with some of the destinations used to have up to three flights daily and lost about $137 million in a week,” Yadhecha said.
Cargo flights are also cancelled.
According to Yadhecha, the number of passengers and cargo flights cancelled are over 160 per week. The number of passengers it was flying to the region is estimated between 40,000 to 50,000 per week.
Ethiopian Airlines has made adjustments in response to the turn of events in the Middle East.
It has temporarily scheduled airplanes that used to fly to the Middle East to a different route – apparently away from the conflict zone. It aims to minimise the loss from the Middle East route.
However, Yadhecha noted that industry is standing to lose due to the war. Particularly, an increase in the price of oil is poised to harm the industry severely.
The United States and Israel started bombing campaigns against Iran last Saturday for which the latter has been trying to respond.
Iran continues its missile and drone attacks across the Gulf as Washington and Tel Aviv claim their campaign – codenamed Operation Epic Fury – is crippling Iran’s military.
Estimates released by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) on Thursday put the cost of the first 100 hours of Operation Epic Fury at $3.7bn, or about $891m per day. Most of this cost – $3.5bn – has not been budgeted for, CSIS reported.
Well over 1300 civilians were reportedly killed in Iran and over 165 were children who were bombed in their school grounds. The U.S. is said to have lost at least six soldiers. Israel has reportedly lost 9. In the UAE, at least three people were killed.
