ADDIS ABABA: Ethiopian Airlines has made a record profit, the company's chief executive officer said this week. Tewolde Gebremariam partly credited the profitability of Ethiopian Airlines to Boeing's problematic 787 planes. He said the company's operating profit between July 2012 and June 2013 is 2.7 billion birr ($143,137,098) from a billion birr ($53,013,740) the previous financial year. Citing unaudited company accounts Tewolde said that the company's net profits also surged during the period to 2.03 billion birr ($107,617,892) from 734 million birr ($39,230,167) of the previous year, a 178 percent increase. Tewolde said the performance is a result of "exceptionally dedicated employees" and the Boeing 787 planes he described as super-efficient. He said the planes helped the company save on fuel costs. It comes after the planes were initially grounded earlier this year and fears rose that the airline could face massive losses. A Boeing spokesman, Daniel Mosely, said the company has been in close communication with its customers regarding compensation since January, when Dreamliners around the world were grounded because of overheating lithium batteries. Mosely said details of the conversations are confidential. Ethiopian Airlines began flying the 787s again last month after the battery problem was fixed. Gebremariam said his company's focus had been on getting the Dreamliners back into service. Now that they are flying again, the company's next step is to start compensation discussions with Boeing. The 50 Dreamliner jets in service worldwide were grounded in mid-January after incidents with smoldering batteries occurred aboard two different planes, leading to hundreds of cancelled flights and revenue losses. Japan's two biggest carriers have the most 787s — All Nippon Airways owns 17 of the jets, while Japan Airlines has seven. The US carrier United has 6 planes. BN
