Ethiopian Airlines Finalize Deal for HQ Construction

Ethiopian Airlines, Ethiopia’s flag carrier, has finalized the deal for the construction of its Head Quarter building inside of Bole International Airport with BET Architects plc and its partner Soehene Partners Architects.

The deal was signed by Yissehak Zewoldi, Vice President of Alliances & Corporate Strategic Planning with Ethiopian and Tesfamariam Teshome, Manager, Senior Partner, and Architect at BET Architects plc on Friday.

The deal was reached after a long negotiation process over a period of almost a year.

The new Ethiopian Airlines head quarters building is expected to cost an estimated 350 million and is part of the facility expansion project Ethiopian has undertaken in line with its vision 2025 according to Wogayehu Terefe, Ethiopian Manager of Public Relations and Publications.

The building currently inhabited by Ethiopian are not able to accommodate the growing airline which makes it necessary to invest in new headquarters said Wogayehu.

The facility expansion project will include development on the aviation academy, student dormitories and a new maintenance hangar.

BET won the conceptual design competition held by Ethiopian last year after satisfying the jury by meeting the demands set by the airlines.

The architects have already met with their international partners and local subcontractors to launch the project putting the design phase of the project in progress said Tesfamariam.

The design is expected to be completed in six months after which the architects can draft a bid document to invite contractors for the construction he said.

The construction of the headquarter building is expected to take up to 30 months following the completion of the design according to the architects.

The cost for the design of the building was not revealed by either side.

Source: Addis Fortune/Capital