Fly Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 787 business class – from Manchester to Marseille!

For a couple of years, Ethiopian Airlines has run an interesting route from Manchester to Geneva. This is a ‘fifth freedom’ service tagged onto an Addis Ababa to Geneva flight.

You will soon have a new option. Ethiopian will fly from Manchester to Marseille from 3rd July.

At the same time, Addis Ababa to Manchester will increase from five to seven weekly flights.

EDIT: Ethiopian Airlines has told us that it does not currently have fifth freedom rights between Manchester and Marseille so tickets are not on sale. Fifth freedom flights between Manchester and Geneva are bookable.

This is how it will work:

• the existing 5x weekly services between Manchester and Geneva will be cut to 3x (Friday, Sunday, Wednesday) from 2nd July

• a new 4x weekly service between Manchester and Marseille will launch on 3rd July

• this means a total of 7x weekly services between Manchester and Addis Ababa, albeit with a stop on the way in either Geneva or Marseille

• the existing tag on Ethiopian’s Madrid service to and from Marseille will end

The flights to Marseille operate on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.

The service leaves Marseille at 7.20am, arriving in Manchester at 8.30am.

The return leaves Manchester at 6.30pm, landing in Marseille at 9.40pm.

Ethiopian will operate this service with an A350 with flat beds in business class.

Ethiopian hadn’t loaded its fares as of last night. The number of seats it is willing to sell between Manchester and Marseille will depend on how many people it expects to fly only to/from Ethiopia and France.

As Ethiopian is a member of Star Alliance, flights should be available as a redemption with Miles & More or any other Star Alliance frequent flyer scheme.  This may end up being a better deal than cash in business class.

Ethiopian is one of the last believers in the value of intermediate stops on long-haul flights. Pre-covid, Ethiopian flew between Manchester and Brussels as a similar ‘fifth freedom’ service. Ethiopian also had flights between Dublin and Madrid in 2019, later switching to Brussels, before suspending them. There was talk of a direct service between Addis Ababa and Manchester but the pandemic put a stop to that, at least for now.

Here is our review of Manchester to Geneva in Ethiopian Airlines business class and here is a more detailed review of London Heathrow to Addis Ababa, this time on an A350. You might also find this 2023 interview with Ethiopian Airlines CEO Mesfin Tasew of interest.

You can check times and prices (assuming they were loaded overnight) on the Ethiopian Airlines website here.

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