Addis Ababa — Due to the increasing number of its passengers, Ethiopian Airlines leased a Boeing 767-300ER aircraft on a dry basis for long range flights, it announced in a statement on Thursday.

Under the agreement with International Lease Financing Corporation (ILFC) of California, United States, the East African airline's cockpit crew would operate the aircraft to any scheduled destination, with its own cabin crew providing service on board, according to the statement.

Manufactured in October 1996, the 220-seater plane, with 190 Economy Class seats, was expected to meet Ethiopian's current capacity requirement.

The aircraft left Amsterdam, Netherlands, at noon on Thursday and was scheduled to land at Addis Ababa Bole International Airport on the same day at 21:45 local time.

Ethiopian and ILFC signed the five-year lease agreement on November 23 2006 in Addis Ababa.

The deal would be effective on December 8.

Ethiopian Airlines won the African Aviation as "African Airline of the Year 2006".

According to the statement, the key criteria for the airline to have won the aviation award includes its performance, and overall profitability, passenger growth, route network expansion, fleet modernization, in-flight services and overall customer care.