Ethiopia's growing aviation education sector this last week added 100 new trained and qualified professionals to the growing local and regional market with the Ethiopian Aviation Academy (EAA) graduating 20 Pilots and 72 Cabin Crew and the Ethiopian Civil Aviation Authority (ECAA) graduating 8 air traffic controllers.
At the graduation ceremony held at the Ethiopian Airlines' Headquarters in Addis Ababa on Tuesday, 25 December 2012, Tewolde GebreMariam, CEO of Ethiopian, gave out diplomas and flight wings to the EAA graduates.
"In line with its 15 years strategic roadmap Vision 2025, the Ethiopian Aviation Academy is undertaking massive facility expansion projects, which will enable it to be the most competitive and leading aviation training centre in Africa. The academy is in the process of enhancing and diversifying is training services, and increasing its admission capacity to cater not just for the needs of the Ethiopian Aviation group but to meet the demand from Africa and elsewhere. By 2025, close to half of its trainees will come from third party admissions," said CEO Tewolde.
Source [Ethiopian Airlines]
By the end of 2025, the academy will increase its admission capacity by fourfold from the current intake capacity of 1,000 trainees per year.
Ethiopian Aviation Academy Vice President Samuel Assefa, on his part, said Ethiopian is making its training facilities up-to-date in order to realize its vision of being the best academy in Africa. He said expansion construction works are underway to enhance the academy's training facility in line with the carrier's Vision 2025.
How ADS-B Air Traffic Management works (ADS-B Tech) |
Meanwhile, the Ethiopian Civil Aviation Authority (ECAA) on Sunday 23 December, graduated eight air traffic controllers fully conversant with both Surveillance System Radar and Automatic Dependant Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) technologies. The training is part of an agreement
between the ICAO's Technical Cooperation Bureau and the Ethiopian Civil
Aviation Authority to train a total of 24 air traffic controllers.
Speaking at the graduation ceremony International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Project Coordinator, Muhammad Kuwaji, said ADS-B had proven to be more accurate, advanced and cost effective than radar and that the adoption of this technology in providing safety in the skies of Ethiopia, is a sign of the strategic vision of the aviation management in the country.
According to Kuwaji, while the United States, Canada and Australia have started using this technology in some areas in their countries, Ethiopia is "probably" the first country to implement the technology on a country-wide basis.