The airline was nominally established in May 1991 (1991-05),[4] serving as the ground handling agent at Asmara International Airport and at Assab and Massawa.

[citation needed] In April 2003, Eritrean Airlines started regular services between Asmara and Frankfurt, Milan, Nairobi and Rome.

Eritrean Airlines received permission from the Civil Aviation Authority of Pakistan to start two flights a week each for Karachi and Lahore.

[12] In June 2011, a senior Eritrean Foreign Ministry official said that the United States government had applied pressure prohibiting companies from leasing aircraft to Eritrea.

He stated that Washington was resorting to such illegal acts as part of its hostile attempts of stiffening anti-Eritrea sanctions, at a time when the Eritrean government was engaged in buying and leasing of passenger planes under new Pakistani management.

Long-term fleet plans included introduction of wide body aircraft like the Airbus A330, as well as new Boeing 737s to replace the A320.

As of January 2020[update], Eritrean had scheduled service to four destinations: Cairo, Addis Ababa, Khartoum, and Jeddah.