The Ethiopian Civil Aviation Authority (ECAA) said it has scored the highest point there is to achieve on the international audit by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). The score achieved, which is still preliminary and yet to be made official, is also the record-highest in the history of African aviation.

Shimeles Kibreab, ECAA Air Navigation Deputy Director-General, briefing the media regarding the preliminary score, said Ethiopia has scored 91.78 percent aviation regulation result, as evaluated by ICAO.

The world average for aviation audit currently stands at 67.7 percent, while the highest score ever achieved for an African aviation was 89 percent. This, Mr. Shimeles, pointed out, makes Ethiopia’s aviation industry stand out as one among the world’s giants.

Albeit the result being preliminary, the Deputy Director-General added, it has been made after the evaluation of all necessary documents, practical activities of operators and all standards. The official result will be published 45 days after evaluation by ICAO.

The audit, it has been pointed out, evaluates every regulatory activity and the magnitude, type and number of fleet, number of local and international flights, number of operators, certification and other related services of the country under examination. Taking all these into consideration, Mr. Shimeles observes the result “is more than satisfactory.”

Endeshaw Yigezu, Air Transport Director at ECAA, for his part, remarked that the result is high “by any qualification” and has been obtained “with the uniform application of international aviation rules and regulations evaluated equally with the developed countries of the world.”

Established in 1944, the Ethiopian Civil Aviation Authority is one of the first 52 countries on the globe to ratify the convention of international civil aviation.

Source: The Ethiopian Herald