Jazeera Airways Will Fly Kuwait to Addis Ababa Three Times a Week From September 7
Kuwait's largest private carrier is chasing a 70,000-strong Ethiopian community into a capital where foreign arrivals climbed 15 percent last year
Three flights a week, starting September 7. That is the whole of what Jazeera Airways announced in Kuwait City on Tuesday: a new route to Addis Ababa, the carrier's first scheduled service into the Ethiopian capital, the airline confirmed.
More than 70,000 Ethiopian nationals live in Kuwait, as Jazeera Airways CEO Barathan Pasupathi called Addis Ababa “more than another destination” and cited the city's role as the seat of the African Union. Ethiopia's ambassador to Kuwait, Dr Sied Muhumed Jibril, said the flights would support trade and cultural exchange between the two countries.
Jazeera runs 22 Airbus A320-family jets today, with 26 more on order — 18 A320neo and 8 A321neo — arriving from the end of 2026. Once delivered, the fleet passes 40 aircraft. The airline serves 63 destinations across the Middle East, Central and South Asia, Africa and Europe, and carries more than five million passengers a year through its own Terminal 5 at Kuwait International Airport. It has been Kuwait's largest private airline since it began operating in 2004.
The route begins as Ethiopia's tourism numbers rise. International arrivals to Ethiopia rose 15 percent in 2025, nearly double Africa's 8 percent average, according to the UN Tourism Barometer. Addis Ababa alone drew close to 700,000 foreign visitors in the first half of the 2025/26 fiscal year, also up 15 percent on the year before, and generated roughly 2.6 billion birr in tourism revenue over that same six-month window. Zoomed out further, Ethiopia's tourism ministry has confirmed arrivals passing one million with revenue above $2 billion, a trajectory the World Travel and Tourism Council named among the most promising anywhere.
Ethiopian Airlines, the flag carrier that owns Bole International Airport, closed its 2024–25 financial year with revenue around $7.6 billion. Bole itself handled 12.1 million passengers in 2024, an 11 percent rise, with aircraft movements up 16.5 percent to more than 165,000. A second international airport is now under construction near Bishoftu, roughly 45 kilometres southeast of the capital, built specifically to take pressure off Bole as arrivals keep climbing.
Jazeera's home hub has closed twice this year — once in February, when the airspace shut during the escalation between the US and Iran, and again in June, after a drone strike damaged a terminal building. Both times Jazeera rerouted through Saudi airports to keep flying.