Eritrean Arilines : B8 : ERT :

Eritrean Airlines is an airline based at Asmara International Airport. Scheduled service had been discontinued since 2008, and the airline only operated a few hajj flights every year. It is wholly owned by the Government of Eritrea, the airline was restarted under new management in 2011.

The airline was established in 1991, but in name only, serving as the ground handling agent at Asmara International Airport and at Assab and Massawa and sales agent for other major airlines flying to Eritrea. In May 2002 it was decided to expand into airline services. So, in April 2003 (2003-04) a Boeing 767-300ER leased from Boeing was the first aircraft the airline took possession of; it was named Queen Bee. A second Boeing 767, a –200ER series, was bought in mid-2004 for US$5.8 million

The lease of the first Boeing 767 seems to have been replaced by an Airbus 320 in 2006 and then replaced again with a Boeing 757 in early 2007 and yet again replaced with a DC-9 in late 2007, ending up with an MD-83. The total fleet of the airline consists nonetheless of the one initially leased Boeing 767.

In April 2003, Eritrean Airlines started regular services between Asmara and Frankfurt, Milan, Nairobi and Rome. In 2004, the airline added Amsterdam as another destination and in 2005, services began to Djibouti and Dubai. Meanwhile, the Nairobi route was dropped. By 2006 the flights to Amsterdam had been dropped while flights to Milan remained seasonal. On September 21, 2006, Eritrean Airlines entered an accord with the Government of Pakistan to start direct flights between Eritrea and Pakistan. Eritrean Airlines received permission from the Civil Aviation Authority of Pakistan to start two flights a week each for Karachi and Lahore. The deal has duly materialized since then, with the commencement of online Eritrean services to Lahore and Karachi via Dubai four times per week on each route, with full fifth freedom passenger and cargo traffic rights on Pakistan - Dubai sector.

The airline announced in 2008 that it was commencing seasonal services to Bamako, for Haj travellers.[5] Flights to Djibouti have been suspended since the end of 2008 due to renewed tensions along the two countries' border and flights to Frankfurt have been temporarily cancelled as of the summer of 2009.

In June 2011, a senior Eritrean Foreign Ministry official said that the US Administration has applied pressure prohibiting companies from leasing aircraft to Eritrea. He stated that Washington is resorting to such illegal acts as part of its hostile attempts of stiffening anti-Eritrea sanctions, at a time when the Eritrean government is engaged in programs of buying and leasing of passenger planes under a new Pakistani management

Eritrean resumed operations on 16 July, they also introduced a new livery on the first A320 received which was used for the inaugural service to Dubai and Lahore. A second A320 was added in October and flights to Karachi were launched, they also plan to restore domestic services once the currently stored Dornier fleet is made airworthy. Long term fleet plans may include introduction of wide body aircraft like the Airbus A330, and new Boeing 737s to replace the A320.

Airline Lands with Front Door Unlatched

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Airline enthusiast Ken Fielding caught an interesting shot while spotting in Manchester (MAN) on December 27, 2004. He took this photo of an Eritrean Airlines Boeing 767-300ER being ferried from Paris-de Gaulle (CDG). At the time, he did not realize the significance of the photo and took a closer look when he recently uploaded it to Flickr. Take a close look near the front of the plane and you will notice that the front door (1R) is unlatched (click on the photo, zoom in and you can easily see the handle in the up position).

It appears that the door was put into that position while at CDG and that the pressurization of the cabin kept the door closed during flight. Fielding reports that since the aircraft was on a ferry flight, there were no passengers on board. Still, that doesn’t give the crew a pass at not completing a simple task of flying safely: make sure all the doors are shut and locked. The crew should have noticed when arming the doors (which they obviously did not do) and/or there should have been an indicator in the cockpit.

I tried to reach out to Eritrean Airlines, but their website is not very helpful for finding contacts and since they are high-lighting stories from 2004, I am guessing it is not the most accurate. The airline went out of business in 2008, but started up again on July 16, 2011 with a pretty slick new livery.