A new Star Alliance redemption – Ethiopian Airlines from Dublin to Los Angeles!

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• Simon says:

  21 Oct21 October 07:22

  I was searching for flights at the weekend and was surprised to see this flight came up. The flights, well at least some of them are showing on the United site, below is for a departure on September 3rd 2015

  Depart:11:30 p.m Los Angeles, CA (LAX)
  Arrive: 6:30 p.m. +1 Day Dublin, Ireland (DUB)

  Economy: 30,000 miles plus $5.60
  Business: 70,000 miles plus $5.60

• Simon says:

  21 Oct21 October 08:04

  This is the flight going the other way, looks like they go on Mondays Thursdays and Sundays.

  Depart: 6:30 a.m. Dublin, Ireland (DUB)
  Arrive: 9:30 a.m. Los Angeles, CA (LAX)

  Economy: 30,000 miles plus $43.40
  Business: 70,000 miles plus $43.40

  • Simcha says:

    21 Oct21 October 08:42

    Spending the day in LAX seems poor utilization. 0630 outbound is impossible to connect to from the UK.

    • Simon says:

      21 Oct21 October 11:24

      I thought the same thing about plane utilization, if the flights aren’t showing on the Ethiopian site it could be the times aren’t finalized and someone has jumped the gun somewhere meaning they do show on the United site.

      I try to avoid any flights which involve an early start if I can!

• Colin MacKinnon says:

  21 Oct21 October 08:14

  Wonder why DUB rather than EDI?

  Would have thought a bigger market at EDI, but then UK APD might have been off-putting?

  • goglobalnz says:

    21 Oct21 October 08:36

    I was thinking it might be because of US immigration being completed before leaving Ireland

    • Brendan says:

      21 Oct21 October 08:57

      It’s not that because this flight won’t benefit from preclearance. There is only an hour stopover from the ADD-DUB leg which arrives at 05.30

      • goglobalnz says:

        21 Oct21 October 10:36

        I have to admit to never having used preclearance. If the transit is too short for connecting traffic, would passengers boarding in DUB be able to take advantage?

        • Brendan says:

          21 Oct21 October 13:36

          I’d imagine it would be too short. Anyway I don’t think preclearance would be open early enough for this flight.

• Col A-B says:

  21 Oct21 October 08:35

  I’ve played around on Skyscanner, Opodo & Ethiopian’s own site – cannot find a single flight. In fact the latter doesn’t even recognise DUB as an airport code :-/

• Lady London says:

  21 Oct21 October 10:31

  Wondering what their safety record is and I might take a casual look. I’m always amused to see flights by certain airlines that have a really bad safety record, such as Ch… Airlines, promoted heavily on price and I do wonder how many people really check this.

  • callum says:

    21 Oct21 October 11:04

    I wonder whether YOU check the safety record or just have prejudices about the airline based on their home country?

    Ethiopian has a good safety record. Assuming you mean a Chinese airline (?), I’ve not seen anything suggesting they have bad safety records either.

    • ehch says:

      21 Oct21 October 12:44

      +1

      @LadyLondon- Better not look up, it’s raining BA fan cowls in your neck of the woods.

    • Lady London says:

      21 Oct21 October 16:17

      Callum perhaps I’m being unduly influenced by recalling the Ethiopian Airlines crash that was on the news, I think it was about 3 years ago, plus professional experience arranging corporate travel.

      I have worked arranging travel for large multinationals around the world some of which have regularly published lists of airlines that are regarded as safe, less safe and unsafe. Corporate travel policies often forbid travel on airlines in the last category and sometimes in the middle category. I learned experienced travellers who had to travel, say, within China from Taiwan to Beijing, stated they would only do that via 2 international flights via, say, Hong Kong rather than use direct routes internal to China on airlines with poor safety records. Russia also used to have travellers doing similar for internal flights on A…. in one company I worked in. That and personal recollection of seeing crashed aircraft on the news do tend to influence me. And however much I sympathise with the management of Malaysian Airlines, it will be a while before I follow up my previous intention to fly on them.

      Haha re the fan cowls ehch 🙂 Could have been very relevant when I lived near Heathrow 🙂

      • CF says:

        21 Oct21 October 18:36

        Taiwan to Beijing is NOT “within China”

      • callum says:

        21 Oct21 October 18:56

        Sorry if you think I was unduly harsh, but I don’t think vague memories of a crash 4 years ago really justifies criticising the safety record.

        Same with the Chinese airlines bit. While it wouldn’t shock me that small Chinese domestic carriers may have a questionable safety record (or even the larger ones in the past), I’ve seen nothing to suggest that the major international carriers that are promoted for their cheap fares are any less safe than the other major carriers. They certainly aren’t dangerous – otherwise they wouldn’t be flying to the EU.

  • TopGunner says:

    21 Oct21 October 16:30

    This is quite the ignorant comment. More than a handful of European and American airlines would love to have the operating record of Ethiopian airlines, an efficient and profitable operation that has existed for over 60 years and done so with minimal government interference, including a marxist regime.

    It is not a spectacular airline, but it does the basics well and provides accessible air transport for a continent starved of connections to the world that are not predatory or based on leveraging colonial windfalls (looking at you Air France and BA). It has not being without its problems of hijackings and some crashes like many airlines, but it also hasn’t gone through name changes or mergers that buried its relevant safety record. In the last 20years it’s most significant accidents were the hijacking of Flight 961 that ran out of fuel and hit a reef while attempting a water landing (a lot of people died because they inflated their water vests inside a cabin filling with water) and flight 409 that crashed out of lebanon in bad weather.

    If I am not mistaken Lufthansa Technik partners with Ethiopian’s MRO to provide full maintenance services for Boeing aircraft in Addis. I wouldn’t consider this a Mickey Mouse airline, and would venture that in the long run they are a better operation than SAA even with South Africa’s larger and more valuable economic base.

• Mat says:

  21 Oct21 October 23:35

  Boeing has a servicing base in Addis Ababa hence the strong links with Ethopian Airways and their reliability in general (the Airways, not Boeing 😉

  Most (if not all) of the Dreamliners assigned to EMEA-based airlines are serviced there..

• Anders says:

  22 Oct22 October 15:26

  Have had several flights with Ethiopian airlines in C – mainly intra africa though. If you’re on one of their new aircrafts It’s actually quite an OK airline with a friendly service. Food though has always been poor, however I guess they will be catered out of Dublin which should help.

• RB211 says:

  3 Nov3 November 06:33

  What is improbable about Ethiopian being part of Star Alliance exactly?

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