Over the last three days, a number of passengers travelling on Ethiopian Air into Bole International Airport in Addis Ababa missed their connecting flights due to multiple delays on routes out of several countries.
In one example, flight ET2705 flew into Bole from Charles de Gaulle in Paris, arriving almost three hours late because of an unscheduled stop by the airline in Milan “to refuel”, setting the flight back by two hours.
It was delayed by, among other things, latecomers being allowed on to the plane 45 minutes after the boarding gates had closed.
The most frustrating part for many was that the flight paid for was from Paris to Cape Town with a single stop via Addis Ababa.
“If Ethiopian Air decides to change my itinerary with no prior notice, the least they should do is alert me and then guarantee their last minute re-scheduling does not impact on arrival times,” said an irate traveller from the US, who like others, believed there should be fair compensation.
After disembarking at Bole International, a 200-strong crowd gathered, including elderly and frail people and young children.
They were made to wait from 08:30 to 13:00 at the Transfer and Arrival Office for officials to explain and remedy the situation, and distribute new boarding passes for flights out of Addis Ababa.
Information shared by the attending ground crew – who were doing their best to re-route people – was vague, conflicting and confusing.
Passengers, of whom some had already experienced delays of up to three days on flights out of cities like Riyadh and Chengdu, were not grouped according to destinations, causing more pandemonium and tempers to flare.
A few people managed to get on to flights the same day, but others, like those en route to Cape Town and Durban on June 23, had to wait up to two days for a connection.
They were put up in city hotels in the capital at Ethiopian Airlines’ expense.
Without working wi-fi at Bole, most people weren’t able to reach those awaiting their arrival in various cities, and an offer by an official allowing passengers one phone call each was not followed through.
An Italian passenger desperate to get to Cape Town for her father’s 80th birthday said: “Without daily flights available from Addis, we expected that our plane to Cape Town would have waited an hour or so for us. They knew we would be late and it was a shock that they chose not to do so.”
Ethiopian Airlines told many Cape Town-bound passengers rerouted through Johannesburg via SAA that their bags would be sent directly to Cape Town International.
On arrival, however, many reported their suitcases missing and spent hours at the airport trying to locate their baggage with the efficient assistance from Baggage Claim officials at SAA and Bid Air.
At no time was any formal statement made by Ethiopian Air offering an apology to passengers on the ground.
And numerous attempts to speak to someone in authority at Ethiopian Airlines at Bole International Airport proved fruitless.