Flags, flowers greet first Ethiopia-Eritrea flight in 20 years

MILLIONS IN SAVINGS

The airline - which operates Africa's biggest fleet - stands to save millions of dollars a year by using Eritrean airspace instead of taking circuitous routes to some Middle East destinations, Tewolde told Reuters.

"This is a big occasion for us," he said.

The importance for ordinary Ethiopians is far greater.

Surafel Demissie, an Ethiopian priest whose parents died during his childhood, had never been to Eritrea - the country of his mother's birth - nor met any family members.

"God is about to bring us together. Today, God dismantled the wall," he said.

Abiy's predecessor as prime minister, Hailemariam Desalegn, told Reuters on board one of the flights that he felt "heartfelt joy".

"There has been hatred between us for the last twenty years - now that has been reversed," he said.

In his boldest move since coming to power in April, Abiy offered last month to make peace with Eritrea 20 years after the conflict in which an estimated 80,000 people died, many of them scythed down by machine-gun fire in World War One-style trench warfare.

Full-blown fighting ended in 2000 but troops have faced off ever since, depriving Ethiopia of access to Red Sea ports and leaving Eritrea to rely on lengthy military conscription to repel the threat from its giant neighbour.

Indefinite national service is the main reason thousands of young Eritrean men flee every month, many making the perilous journey across the Mediterranean in search of a better life in Europe.

Acknowledging that the conflict was placing an unsustainable economic burden on both sides, Abiy has since visited Asmara and Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki reopened his nation’s embassy in Addis Ababa on Monday.

The countries barred their citizens from visiting each other during the conflict and foreigners wanting to travel from one country to the other had to connect via a third country.

"It is crazily expensive," said one Kenya-based Eritrean businesswoman.