Boeing has started the year on a high with the announcement of another order for its popular 787 Dreamliner family of widebody twinjets. The operator in question is Ethiopian Airlines, with Africa’s largest carrier having put its name down for another nine examples of the mid-sized 787-9 variant.

Ethiopian Airlines has a long and successful working relationship with Boeing, having also ended 2025 in style by tying down a separate order for the US planemaker’s narrowbodies at the recent Dubai Airshow. The carrier already operates the Boeing 787-9, alongside its short-fuselage 787-8 counterpart, with the Dreamliner family being one half of a two-part strategy when it comes to modernizing Ethiopian Airlines’ long-haul fleet.

Boeing Finalizes Another Order

Earlier today, Boeing released a statement confirming that it had shaken hands with Ethiopian Airlines for nine examples of its mid-sized 787-9 twinjet from the widebody Dreamliner family. The planemaker cited rising demand in long-haul travel as a key factor in Ethiopian Airlines’ decision to add to its order book, with Africa’s largest carrier set to « leverage the 787-9 jets to grow its network, which currently serves 145 international destinations. »

Although the deal was only announced officially today, Boeing notes that it was actually finalized last month, as was a separate order that we will shortly discuss in more detail. Mesfin Tasew, who currently serves in the role of Group CEO at Ethiopian Airlines, said that the carrier is « pleased to confirm the order for nine Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft to further expand our existing fleet. » The deal also has a sustainability angle, and he adds:

« This order underscores our continued commitment to enhancing our fleet with modern, fuel-efficient aircraft, thereby further strengthening our customer service. We will continue to acquire more aircraft and adopt the latest technologies. »

A Close Working Relationship

As well as being the largest carrier in Africa, Ethiopian is also home to the largest fleet of aircraft from the Boeing 787 family on the continent, with, as previously mentioned, both the short-fuselage 787-8 and the mid-sized 787-9 already at its disposal. Boeing explains that these jets serve « intercontinental routes from Addis Ababa to high-demand destinations across Europe, Asia, and North America as well as key intra-African routes. »

In addition to being an efficient people mover, Ethiopian Airlines also stands to further benefit from the 787’s belly cargo capacity, which Boeing says will help it serve « high-demand trade lanes » that align with passenger routes. The US planemaker has a strong working relationship with Ethiopian Airlines, and, alongside the 787 Dreamliner family, Africa’s largest carrier also has outstanding orders for jets from the 737 MAX and the 777X series.

The former of these was the subject of another recent order, with Ethiopian Airlines having made headlines at the 2025 Dubai Airshow in November by purchasing another 11 units of the narrowbody 737 MAX 8 twinjet. According to ch-aviation, the carrier now has 22 examples in its fleet and another 32 on order, having overcome the previous emotional turmoil of one of its MAX 8s being involved in a grounding-triggering fatal crash back in 2019.

Ethiopian Airlines’ Boeing 787 Fleet In A Nutshell

As far as the Dreamliner family is concerned, data from ch-aviation shows that Ethiopian Airlines presently has 20 units of the Boeing 787-8 variant at its disposal, alongside 10 examples of the larger 787-9. These aircraft are 11.3 and 6.2 years old respectively, compared to a fleet-wide mean of 11.7 years. Per aeroLOPA, Ethiopian Airlines’ 787-8s have 270 seats across two classes, while its 787-9s have 315 seats across two classes.

As far as the usage of these modern widebody twinjets is concerned, current scheduling data made available by Cirium, an aviation analytics company, shows that Ethiopian Airlines has penciled in a grand total of 1,307 flights with the 787-8 this month, alongside 673 with the 787-9. Its top destination for the 787-8 from its Addis Ababa hub is Delhi, with 50 January rotations, while the 787-9 will peak at 40 round trips to Cape Town.