Incident on flight ET-404/24 from Addis Ababa to Tel Aviv - 26 November, 2008

In line with the regulation of the Civil Aviation Authority of Israel, any commercial flight is required to notify the Air Traffic Controllers (ATC) ten minutes before entering into the country’s air space.

Accordingly while the flight crew was trying to communicate with the Israeli Air Traffic Controllers there was misunderstanding in communication. As a result, the ATC has held the flight for 18 minutes until they confirmed that the aircraft was in fact Ethiopian Airlines flight ET-404/24 November 2008.

There after, the flight was cleared to land at Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv as per its schedule. The passengers were also handled smoothly as usual.

Ethiopian has been operating to Tel Aviv since 1998. Currently it operates four weekly flights to Tel Aviv.

About Ethiopian

Ethiopian Airlines, www.ethiopianairlines.com, one of the largest and fastest growing airlines in Africa made its maiden flight to Cairo in 1946. The airline currently serves 53 destinations around the globe, 33 of which are in Africa.

In 2008 Ethiopian was the proud recipient of the Corporate Achievement Award from Aviation & Allied Business, the Brussels Airport Marketing Award on its long haul service, and Best Airline in Africa from the Africa Travel Award-Nigeria. In 2006 and 2007 Ethiopian also won awards as the African Airline of the Year 2006, Africa Business of the Year 2007 and Ghana Business and Financial Award 2007 from the African Aviation, the African Times/USA and the Government of Ghana respectively for its outstanding performance in the commercial air transport industry.

Ethiopian will be the first carrier to operate the 787 Dreamliner in Africa, the Middle East and Europe.