ICAO certifies Ethiopian Aviation Academy as regional training centre

Ethiopian Aviation Academy has been recognised as ICAO Regional Training Centre of Excellence at the ICAO’s Global Aviation Training and TRAINAIR PLUS symposium held in Seoul, South Korea.

The Academy attained the recognition following a rigorous assessment of the Training Organisation, Training and Procedures Manuals, Facilities, Training Processes, Qualification of Staff and Quality System.

The recognition allows Ethiopia to develop and host ICAO Training Packages (ITPs) in addition to ICAO recognised Standardised Training Packages (STPs) of its own. Moreover, besides improving the quality of training by making it more of material dependent than instructor dependent, the ITPs and STPs can also be exchanged with all ICAO TRAINAIR PLUS members and generate revenue.

Tewolde GebreMariam, group CEO, Ethiopian Airlines, said: “We believe education is the greatest equaliser in the 21^stcentury and our Aviation Academy has strategically positioned itself to train the African youth in the latest Aviation technology and latest aviation skills to own, manage and operate their own indigenous home-grown African Airlines to lead safe, economical and reliable aviation industry with global standards.

“This recognition is the result of the continuous heavy investment we are making on human resource development, a critical pillar of our Vision 2025 strategy. We have invested more than $100 million to expand both the scope of the training and the in-take capacity of the Academy.

“Today, our Academy admits over 1,500 students per year to train pilots, aircraft technicians, cabin crew, marketing and finance personnel, customer service agents as well as aviation leaders. Going forward, we plan to increase this in-take capacity to 4,000 by 2025, so as to cater for the growing training need in the continent.”