ET: Another day, another alliance membership - Ethiopan Airlines to join Star Alliance

Well things don't stand still in the aviation industry. With SkyTeam concentrating work in Africa, OneWorld in Europe, Star Alliance is working with African/Middle Eastern Carriers with the announcement that Ethiopian Airlines will be joining Star.

Timetabled for full membership in the next 12 months, Ethiopian will be mentored by Lufthansa as they migrate systems towards being compliant.

This makes Star Alliance bigger with 29 airlines, 5 new countries to serve added and 29 new destinations


There are the usual quotes saying how good it is, but this should open up some intresting travel options to people making redemptions

And it's not as if Ethiopian are staying still with the a lot of new aircraft on order - in particular Boeing 777-200LR's, Boeing 787's and Airbus A350-900's to reequip it's longhaul fleet.

It's current fleet is a mix of

• Regional - Fokker 50's and Dash 8-400's
• Short Haul - Boeing 737-700's and 800's
• Long Haul - Boeing 757's and Boeing 767ER's for long haul work.

Another growth for Star Alliance - but there is still the long langishing membership of Air India to sort out still...

Ethiopian Incident ** Update **

More details are slowly emerging regarding the ET409 air accident that happened this yesterday

• Eyewitnesses say they saw a ball of fire in the sky before Addis the plane fell into the sea after taking off in stormy weather. 
• At least 24 bodies have been found, 
• No Survivors have been found found
  
• The plane disappeared from radar screens some five minutes after take-off in stormy weather at about 02:00 near the village of Naameh, about 2 miles from the coast.  
• It appears that the plane did not follow the suggested flightpath of the tower, but turned in the opposite direction into the storm.  It is unclear why this happened, or if it was beyond the pilot's control. 
• The flight recorders have not yet been recovered 
  

** BREAKING NEWS ** Ethipoian Airlines airlines crash near Beirut

An Ethiopian Airlines flight 409 from Beirut to Addis Ababa has crashed 5 minutes after take off.

Search and Rescue operations are in progress - it is unknown if any of the 83 passengers or 9 crew survived.

The plane - a Boeing 737, is said to have disappeared from radar screens some five minutes after take-off in stormy weather at about 0200 local time.

News is still developing in this story - updates will follow during the day.