Ethiopian Airlines offers aviation training to foreign trainees

The Ethiopian Airlines (EAL), Ethiopia's 60-year-old national flag carrier, said Thursday it has attracted hundreds of foreign trainees to its multinational aviation training center.

The center was specialized in aviation training with schools focusing on flying and aviation maintenance, according to Muna Abebe, a marketing manager of EAL.

The center's pilot training school (PTS) and aircraft maintenance training school (AMTS) were founded in 1964 and 1967 respectively. The two schools have been extending their services to the nationals of over 52 countries, said Muna.

The PTS has so far trained 755 pilots, 293 of them non- Ethiopians from Africa and the Middle East and a few from Asia and Europe. The AMTS has trained 2,151 technicians, 699 of them from 47 countries mainly from the Middle East and Africa.

The syllabus of both schools are accredited by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).

ICAO is an agency of the United Nations, which develops the principles and techniques of international air navigation and fosters the planning and development of international air transport to ensure safe and orderly growth.

Muna said the two schools utilize EAL's maintenance facilities for on-the-job training and for undergoing a learning process within the premises of an aviation environment.

He also said computerized flight training devices are used to simulate flight-training techniques.

With its modern fleet of Boeing aircraft, EAl, set up in 1946, operates to 43 destinations worldwide including 24 in Africa, eight each in Asia and Europe, and one in the United States.

Source: Xinhua