State-owned Ethiopian Airlines’ chief executive said on Tuesday that US President Donald Trump’s order temporarily halting immigration from seven Muslim-majority states was creating confusion for some of its passengers, but was not having much impact overall on its operations.
Tewolde Gebremariam also told media that the airline’s revenues were up 10.3 percent at 54.5 billion birr ($2.43bn) in the 2015/16 fiscal year, while passenger numbers rose 18 percent to 7.6 million.
Meanwhile, the state-owned Ethiopian Airlines is unable to repatriate about $220 million held in local currency in Nigeria, Egypt and some other African states because of foreign exchange shortages in those nations, the company’s chief executive said.
He told the media that this was partly because countries such as Nigeria had been hit by recent falls in oil prices, which was reducing foreign exchange inflows. This also meant cash held in the local currencies was losing value, he said. “This is a huge challenge for us,” the CEO said.
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