Ethiopian Airlines expanding MRO center
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia – Ethiopian Airlines is investing in its Maintenance Repair and Overhaul (MRO) center with the view of accommodating the growing demand of the airline and do more third-part work.
At a press conference held on Tuesday, Zemene Nega, vice president for Ethiopian MRO, said that the airline is making a substantial amount of investment in its MRO facilities. “We are doing third-party work. But we want to grow our third party business. As we speak now we are building three maintenance hangars. The first one will be completed in three months’ time. The other two will be completed with-in a year and a half. We will do more third-party business when these hangars are completed,” Zemene said.
The MRO center is building its engine and component maintenance capability. The airline recently built in house capability of maintaining CFM engines. CFM engines are produced by CFM International, a joint venture company established by General Electric (GE) and the French Snecma 40 years ago. According to Zemene, Ethiopian CFM maintenance shop is approved by CFM International, the Ethiopian Civil Aviation Authority and the US Federal Aviation Administration. “We have successfully maintained 10 CFM engines so far and we are happy with the output.” Ethiopian invested USD 21 million to develop the CFM engine overhaul capacity.
According to the airline, in 2013/14 fiscal year Ethiopian MRO generated 483 million birr from third party maintenance service. In the Vision 2025 growth plan, it projects to make around 10 billion birr from third party work.
