The Ethiopian Aviation Academy announced that it is in the process of a large scale expansion project expected to cost an estimated 50 million US Dollars.

The academy is undertaking the expansion as part of its effort to increase its enrollment capacity to meet the ever increasing demand from trainees interested in its basic and recurrent training programs explained Tewolde Gebre-Mariam, Chief Executive Officer of the airline.

The expansion project will include the construction of buildings and supplying the Academy with computer based trainings, modern training aircraft, simulators, and other high tech facilities he said. The expansion will ensure that the academy is more competitive in the regional market according to Tewolde.

Ethiopian has been concentrating on its human resource development for the last ten years but was limited because of the training capacity of its aviation academy which could only train 200 people a year he noted.

The airline is now able to train 1,000 people according to its current capabilities but this is still not enough to meet domestic and international demands for personnel which has led the airline to revise its human resource development plan with a view towards increasing the number of people it can train said Tewolde.

Its new human development plan is part of the larger vision to  update the training facilities up-to-date so that the Airlines can realize its vision to be the best academy in Africa, according to the CEO. Expansion construction works are underway to enhance the training facility of the academy he added.

Source: Ethiopian News Agency