The longserving CEO of Africa’s largest airline Ethiopia Airlines has stepped down, citing ill health. Starting at the firm in 1985, he become CEO in 2011. He leaves behind a strong legacy, the envy of other African airlines who struggle to match Ethiopian’s operational efficiency.
Tewolde GebreMariam is a towering figure of African aviation, dragging Ethiopian Airlines through a profound modernisation process, and running the state-backed company profitably, in comparison to many continental peers.
The company tripled its fleet under his watch, from around 40 when he took over as CEO in 2011, to 120 today.
Turnover grew from $1.3bn in 2021 to $3.9bn in 2019-2020. And Ethiopian’s Addis Ababa hub now flies to 120 destinations, compared to 80 in 2010.
While the Covid-19 pandemic has had a huge impact, kicking a billion dollar whole in the budget, Ethiopian Airlines has managed to be operationally flexible, refitting several passenger planes into cargo carriers, the fruit of a long-started diversification exercise.
Ethiopian Airlines was the continent’s fifth largest carrier, after South African Airways, Egyptair, Royal Air Maroc and Kenya Airways. But post pandemic, thanks to this agility, it finds itself Africa’s biggest as measured by turnover in our exclusive ranking of Africa’s Top 500 Companies.
“I have already retired due to ill-health & the resignation I submitted to the gov’t was accepted”, Tewolde told Ethiopia Check.
The news was broken by local news outlet the Addis Standard.
Breaking: Tewolde Gebremariam, CEO of @flyethiopian, resigned from his position.
A text message from Tewolde sent to confirm the news & seen by AS says he was “retiring due to health issues.” Tewolde has been the CEO for the last 11 years but was with the airline for 37 years. pic.twitter.com/IOowU5CnUi
— Addis Standard (@addisstandard) March 23, 2022
More on this story as it develops
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