Medina : Ethiopian Airlines is returning to Medina, its fourth destination in Saudi Arabia and 12th across the Middle East, on August 2 with four weekly flights.

The airline will operate Boeing 154 seater 737-800 with 16 seats in Business and 138 in Economy on the route.

Earlier, the airline launched flights on the route in 2017, however, the regular mainly revolving around pilgrim traffic for Umrah were suspended during mid-2020.

In 2019, Ethiopian had 50,100 available seats to/from Medina, according to reports. They added, it sold approximately 44,000, for a seat load factor of 88 per cent. Just over half of the passengers were point-to-point as they only travelled between Addis and Media while the rest transited Addis Ababa, also mentioned reports.

The return of Medina means that Ethiopian has 95 weekly Middle East passenger flights in the week starting August 2. Note that only 11 of the 12 Middle East routes are served then. The 12th, Bahrain, returns on October 31, having last been served on a passenger basis in May.