Nairobi — The scramble for a piece of the southern Sudan pie is set to rise a notch higher with the entry of Ethiopian Airlines (EAL) into the fray.

The airline, one of the continent's premier carriers, says that it will start flying to Juba from May 1, marking the first time a major continental carrier flies to the town. It will fly to the capital of southern Sudan four times a week, returning on the same day to Addis Ababa's Bole International Airport.

EAL will fly to Juba on Mondays and Fridays with a stopover in Nairobi, as well as on Wednesdays and Saturdays with stopovers in Entebbe, Uganda. For all flights, the carrier will use a Boeing 737-700 with a capacity of 118 seats, of which 16 will be in first class and 102 seats in economy class.

According to a statement distributed by the airline, the launch of the services to Juba, a city of more than 160,000 people, will bring EAL destinations in Africa to 29 and to 46 worldwide.

By April, the carrier will fly daily to Kilimanjaro, Dar es Salaam, and Entebbe, 10 times a week to Nairobi, five times a week to Kigali, Bujumbura and Khartoum, and four times a week to Djibouti and Somaliland's Hargeisa, the statement added.

Analysts say Southern Sudan could record some of the highest growth rates ever witnessed in Africa if the fragile peace holds. Last year, donors pledged more than $4 billion in aid for reconstruction, boosting the regional government's kitty, which received nearly $1 billion in oil revenues.

The south's cut of oil money is projected to rise to $1.3 billion this year. Up to 500,000 barrels of crude oil are produced every day in Sudan, mainly from fields in the south, with output forecast to rise by 150,000 barrels per day at the end of the year.