Crash puts spotlight on Ethiopian Airlines, pride of a nation

Across Ethiopia, Ethiopian Airlines has come to mean more than just a national carrier. The airline has become a symbol and a motor of Ethiopia’s ascent from one of the world’s poorest nations to a regional powerhouse. In the past 2 decades Ethiopian’s fleet has grown from a dozen planes to more than a hundred, turning the capital city into an aviation hub that connects Africa to Asia and North America. “For every Ethiopian, the airline is a reference point for what we’ve been able to achieve, and for what we are capable of achieving,” said one aviation-industry expert. The intertwined fates of carrier and country are now in sharp focus following Sunday’s deadly crash, raising the stakes for the airline to effectively manage the fallout of an accident that has prompted the grounding of all of Boeing ’s 737 MAX aircraft world-wide. <br/>