Ethiopian's University in a class of its own

The aviation training centre has been training the pilots, technicians, cabin crew and airline sales agents required for the operation of Ethiopian Airlines. The centre has played a crucial role in the success of the national airline by providing well-trained staff.

Almost all the senior executives of the airline, including former CEO Girma Wake, Tewolde Gebremariam and the current CEO, Mesfin Tasew, have been trained at this once small aviation training centre.

With a humble beginning in the 1950s with few instructors, the aviation training centre expanded and grew steadily over the consecutive decades.

When Ethiopian Airlines transformed into an aviation group and unveiled its ambitious Vision2025 growth strategy, the airline made a whopping more than 100 million USD investment in the centre to elevate it into a fully-fledged aviation academy.

The fast-growing national airline demand for aviation professionals increased drastically. To meet the growing requirement the airline invested heavily in acquiring dozens of trainer aircraft, flight simulators, and cabin crew training mock aircraft, plus built facilities such as class rooms, dormitories, a dining hall, auditorium and library.

Five modern buildings comprising various facilities were built and the aviation academy became one of the eight profit centres of Ethiopian Airlines Aviation Group.

“Human resource development was one of the five pillars of our Vision 2025 growth strategy,” Ethiopian Airlines Group CEO Mesfin Tasew said.

“Human resources has always been our priority agenda even when we were a small airline,” he added.

To cope up with the fast growth of the airline and to meet the future development goals the aviation academy had to grow proportionally. Accordingly, the aviation academy was transformed into a full-fledged aviation university in 2023.

The Ethiopian Aviation University now has a pilot training school, aircraft maintenance technicians school, cabin crew training school, commercial and ground services training school, leadership and career development training school, school of aerospace engineering, and a school of travel, tourism and hospitality.