The new airline's maiden flight to Nairobi carried a shipment of East African currency equivalent to  million in , but the first revenue scheduled service was on ; it travelled the Addis Ababa–Asmara–Cairo route using one of five Douglas C-47 Skytrains acquired from the US Government. This route later operated on a weekly basis. The Skytrains were initially intended for military use, although Ethiopian operated them in a mixed passenger-cargo configuration. Soon afterwards, the carrier launched services to Aden and Djibouti, as well as a domestic flight to Jimma. The main five routes in the early years were Addis Ababa–Asmara, Addis Ababa–Djibouti–Aden, Addis Ababa–Khartoum, Addis Ababa–Cairo (routed via Jeddah or Khartoum) and Asmara–Khartoum.