Addis Ababa may not have the most beautiful airport and the lack of gates is annoying, but transit is fairly easy. Here’s a handy guide to help make your transit easy.
I landed from Toronto at a remote gate, like the majority of flights at Bole International Airport. Even though we landed about 30 minutes ahead of schedule, a bus was already waiting for us. In fact, three busses were. There is a “luxury” bus for business class passengers and two busses for the economy class cabin.
As we made our way to the terminal we encountered close-up views of many beautiful aircraft. Finally, after a five-minute ride, we pulled up in front of the terminal entrance.
A mad dash ensued, but everyone kept moving. The terminal itself looks fairly run-down, but there was an elevator and escalator working well along with stairs, which is more than I can say about many gates in Germany.
Upstairs on the arrivals level there are strategically placed transit desks (Ethiopian Airlines only, as far as I could tell) in which you can obtain your hotel voucher or onward boarding pass. I’ll have details on Ethiopian’s complimentary hotel voucher for transit passengers in a subsequent post.
If you’re connecting immediately to another flight, there is no passport control or security check. Instead, Addis Ababa has security checks upon arrival at the airport and at boarding gates prior to boarding.
The international terminal can be quite crowded, but there are lounges, restaurants, and duty free available.
CONCLUSION
While not a luxurious airport, ADD is an airport that works. Transiting here is straightforward and relatively simple.
I had a 45 minute connection at ADD this week. It was the most stressful, frustrating, humiliating experience in all my decades of international travel.
I urge extreme caution to anyone contemplating a tight connection at ADD.
As background: our flights (Cape Town-ADD, ADD-Toronto) were Ethiopian Airlines business class flights on a single ticket.
1. Our CPT flight landed on time, 45 minutes ahead of my departing YYZ flight. That’s a pretty standard connection time for ET international flights. Then we sat on the tarmac for 20-25 minutes — with no explanation, no announcement — until stairs appeared so we could disembark.
2. The cabin crew made no announcement and seemed clueless when we asked about our connecting flight. “Ask the man at the bottom of the stairs” was their only advice.
3. So I asked the ET employee “at the bottom of the stairs”, who said and did nothing.
4. We told the bus driver we now had 15 minutes — FIFTEEN minutes — for our connection. We and the other business class passengers were delivered to the ground floor of the terminal, where we had to go through a security check just to enter the terminal.
5. By this point, the business class passengers, many of whom had tight connections, were shouting at staff and at each other, as we pushed and elbowed our way through an extremely thorough security check. I actually thought someone (maybe me!) was gonna throw a punch at someone. One airport staffer stood on the sidelines, visibly laughing at our group’s distress.
6. Then we all ran up the escalators to departure level. NO staff assistance of any kind. NO ONE to direct us where to go. We knew our departure gate was A 16 — the farthest gate in the terminal — and headed in that direction.
7. Guess what — we had to go through another security check! Shoes off, belts off, plus a body-scan machine. By this point, we had 2 minutes left.
8. My partner, who has a heart condition and cannot run, walked behind as I sprinted to our distant gate. Halfway there, there was an employee checking passports but I didn’t stop — just waved my open passport at her.
9. I arrived at A 16 at the very moment the flight was scheduled to leave. Fortunately, the gate was still open.
In fact, a couple of passengers arrived and were boarded after we got on the plane, which departed 25 minutes after the scheduled time. Perhaps the delay was to accommodate economy-class passengers who were even later than we. I’ll never know.
If the experience was this bad for Business class passengers, imagine what it was like for Economy passengers, who disembarked after us and did not have a dedicated business-class bus to get them to the terminal!
So, yeah, I’ve had tight connections before at ADD where ET staff are pro-active in getting you to your flight on time.
But it’s NOT something you can count on.
Beware, beware, beware.
I thought Bole Airport was an easy transit. We arrived from YYZ into gate 12 and our departing flight to JRO was sitting at gate 10, a 2 minute walk. No security no bag check, just show passport and ticket at gate. Returning we had a 2 1/2 hr layover and visited the cloud 9 lounge, just around the corner from our gate. Easy, smeazy.