Why is Ethiopian Airlines in Talks with Airbus for New A350 and A220 Aircraft Order?

Ethiopian Airlines (ET) is in early-stage discussions with Airbus SE over a potential order for six Airbus A350 widebody jets and approximately 20 Airbus A220 regional aircraft, Bloomberg first reported. The talks are private, and people familiar with the matter cautioned that deliberations remain at an incipient stage with no certainty of a final agreement or confirmation of the quantities under consideration.

This news about the African flagship carrier comes across the backdrop of the fact that it broke ground on the Bishoftu International Airport — a $12.5 billion greenfield infrastructure project designed to become Africa’s largest aviation hub earlier this year. The carrier is prosecuting one of the most aggressive fleet-acquisition programmes on the continent, with approximately 120 aircraft currently on order spanning both Boeing and Airbus product lines. It is working towards the Vision 2035 strategic target of operating 271 aircraft and carrying 65 million passengers annually.

Ethiopian Airlines and Airbus Open Talks for Up To 26 Aircraft Across Two Families

Bloomberg’s reporting of the carrier’s wish to acquire 26 aircraft cited sources who requested anonymity given the private nature of the discussions. The two aircraft types serve fundamentally distinct roles within an airline’s network architecture:

• the A350 is a twin-aisle, long-haul platform designed for intercontinental trunk routes
• the A220 — originally developed by Bombardier as the C Series before Airbus acquired programme control in 2018 — is a single-aisle regional jet seating between 100 and 160 passengers and optimised for thin, point-to-point domestic and intra-continental routes.

Should the order proceed, the A220 acquisition would resolve a gap Ethiopian Airlines has been attempting to fill for several years. As recently as June 2025, CEO Mesfin Tasew Bekele told Reuters at the sidelines of the IATA annual meeting that the airline was evaluating three regional jet candidates: the Airbus A220, the Embraer E2, and the Boeing 737 MAX 7.

The CEO added at the time that the final quantity ordered would depend on the type selected, and noted that delivery delays from both Boeing and Airbus were constraining capacity across the network. The emergence of a narrowed focus on the A220 in the current talks suggests that evaluation may have advanced substantially in the intervening months.

Ethiopian’s Boeing-Dominant Fleet Might Have More Airbus

According to data from planespotters.net, Ethiopian’s fleet includes Boeing 737s, 777s and 787 Dreamliners alongside Airbus A350s and 50 turboprops.

Aircraft Type	In Service	Parked	Current Total	Avg. Age
ATR 42 / 72	2	—	2	0.9 Years
Airbus A350 XWB	26	—	26	5.8 Years
Boeing 737	41	1	42	9.7 Years
Boeing 767	2	2	4	12.9 Years
Boeing 777	21	2	23	10.3 Years
Boeing 787 Dreamliner	28	2	30	9.9 Years
De Havilland Canada DHC-8 Dash 8	30	1	31	10.5 Years
Total	150	8	158	9.3 Years

The airline maintains a substantial Boeing backlog: at the 2023 Dubai Airshow, Ethiopian committed to 67 Boeing aircraft comprising 737 MAX and 787 Dreamliner jets in what was described as the largest-ever purchase of Boeing aircraft by an African airline. Those orders were subsequently supplemented at the 2025 Dubai Airshow, where Ethiopian firmed options for an additional 11 Boeing 737 MAX 8 jets and placed a fresh commitment for nine Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners, the latter finalised in December 2025 and announced by Boeing on 20 January 2026.

On the Airbus side, Ethiopian has been steadily deepening its commitment to the A350 family. At the 2025 Dubai Airshow on 18 November, Ethiopian signed a firm order for six Airbus A350-900s with Airbus EVP Sales Benoît de Saint-Exupéry. Separately, on 21 November 2025, Dubai-based lessor Novus Aviation Capital formalised an agreement to place two additional A350-900 aircraft with the carrier at the Airbus Chalet. The carrier said that the acquisition of the A350, which is deployed in the longest flights in the world, was to help the airline “grow sustainably while providing a world-class travel experience to our passengers and strengthening our position as the aviation leader in Africa”

Ethiopian is already the largest A350 operator in Africa, and the six aircraft ordered directly at the airshow — combined with April 2026’s conversion of six options into firm 787-9 orders — underscore a fleet strategy that is simultaneously intensifying at both manufacturers.

Ethiopian’s A350s Will Fly to and From the Bishoftu Mega-Airport

On 10 January 2026, Ethiopian Airlines officially broke ground on Bishoftu International Airport (BIA), a greenfield development located approximately 40 kilometres southeast of Addis Ababa’s existing Bole International Airport (ADD), at an elevation of 1,910 metres.

The project — estimated at $12.5 billion, revised upward from an initial $10 billion as its scope expanded — will be delivered in phases. Let’s have a look into these phases and how the airport is expected to fare: