Fifth-freedom flights are tag services that both start and end outside of the operating airline’s home country. These types of flights can be a great way to experience an airline without ever travelling to its home country.
Fifth-freedom flights are often also cheaper, have better award availability and offer a more comfortable experience than you’d get on other airlines flying on the same route.
Ethiopian Airlines, Africa’s largest airline as of 2023, is also the world’s largest operator of fifth-freedom routes. Based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopian Airlines currently sells tickets on 23 fifth-freedom routes outside of Ethiopia. In each case, these flights originate in Addis Ababa but stop in an intermediate country en-route to their final destination.
(As it happens, Ethiopian Airlines also has many other tag flights within Europe, and from Dublin to North America, that are not considered fifth-freedom routes because seats are not sold to passengers that are not travelling to or from Addis Ababa.)
If you’re loyal to Star Alliance – or perhaps you’d just like to give Ethiopian Airlines a try – it’s worth looking out for Ethiopian Airlines fifth-freedom routes. For example, Ethiopian Airlines flies Boeing 787 Dreamliners between Stockholm and Oslo. These flights are often half the price of flying with SAS on a narrow-body jet the same route, and you’ll get to enjoy the outstanding Ethiopian hospitality on your one-hour flight within Scandinavia! If you’re in Ethiopian Airlines Business Class, you’ll even be lucky enough to get a lie-flat bed – a rarity on intra-Europe flights.
Other routes served by Ethiopian Airlines include Singapore-Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok-Hong Kong, Seoul-Tokyo and Buenos Aires-São Paulo.
As Ethiopian Airlines is a member of Star Alliance, you can earn or redeem miles with any Star Alliance frequent flyer program when flying with Ethiopian Airlines.
Map of routes
As of March 2023, Ethiopian Airlines is either operating or planning to launch services on the following international fifth-freedom routes:
There have been a few changes to this list of routes since the “pre-COVID” days. Out of interest, these were the fifth-freedom routes Ethiopian was flying as of June 2019.
Wondering what other fifth-freedom routes exist? Australian Frequent Flyer has published a complete and regularly-updated list of fifth-freedom flights from all over the world: A Complete List of Fifth-Freedom Routes
