TWA’s Services to Ethiopia from 1945–87: A Best-Practice Example of Business-Led Development Cooperation?

In 1945, executives of Trans World Airlines (TWA) were approached to help establish an Ethiopian national airline under TWA management, leading to a contract that should be renewed several times and cooperation of over 30 years. Additionally, US financing was crucial for the acquisition of the first jets and airport construction in Ethiopia. Starting with rapid and intensive growth, Ethiopian Airlines (EAL, today ETH) grew into one of Africa’s leading airlines and remains until today a company that is considered one of the continent’s biggest commercial success stories.

While interest in aviation history has gained some traction outside a more narrowly focused technical history for a while, the evolution of air transport in the Global South has only begun to be studied in recent years. Not only was the build-up of a global aerial infrastructure part and parcel of US foreign policy and geopolitics during the Cold War period. The role of US-based managerial knowledge, commercial interests of the wider aviation industry (including airlines such as TWA but also plane and engine manufacturers such as Boeing, Douglas, and Pratt-Whitney) and the relationship between business and political interests need to be understood in more depth.

Based on sources from US, German, and Ethiopian archives as well as autobiographical records of former managers, this paper explores the working relationship between Ethiopian and US actors in day-to-day operations and the worldviews and experiences shaping their actions and decision-making. Further, it contextualizes this history within the politics of US aerial imperialism and Ethiopian political economy (EAL/ETH was and still is 100 % state-owned) and the rapid expansion of commercial aviation in the “Jet Age” during the 1950s and 1960s. The results provide important and overlooked insights into the financial, technical, and legal aspects shaping air routes and aerial mobility until today.