Ethiopian Airlines Expands MRO Capabilities Across Africa

As Africa’s largest carrier, Ethiopian Airlines has become a driving force in developing the continent’s MRO capabilities. Ethiopian CEO Mesfin Tasew Bekele discusses with James Pozzi how the airline is building MRO capacity, nurturing talent and adopting new tech to support Africa’s aftermarket.

Ethiopian Airlines has invested heavily in growing its MRO infrastructure. What are some of the airline’s key investments and objectives? Ethiopian Airlines now operates the largest MRO facility in Africa, which has grown alongside our fleet—the largest in Africa. To support the maintenance requirement of our fleet, we need to have a bigger MRO facility. As we grew in terms of the number of aircraft, the maintenance requirement grew, and our existing facilities were too small. To meet Ethiopian’s fleet growth and the maintenance needs that come with it, we had to invest to grow certain areas of our services operation. In July, we inaugurated three facilities. This includes the construction of two new airframe maintenance hangars, which expanded capacity and served the needs of our growing third-party customer base, and a component MRO facility, which allowed us to build additional capabilities. Previously, we had small component repair shops, but these became a constraint in developing new capabilities. The new facility aims to develop new capabilities in several areas, including automatic test equipment, landing gear, hydraulics, pneumatics, electromechanical, inflight entertainment and emergency equipment shops. The addition of our first fully automated warehouse dramatically improves efficiency in materials management and gives us that extra capacity which was not there before. Our plan is to continue investing in other areas of the MRO business.

What is the current breakdown between in-house Ethiopian fleet and third-party maintenance work? Generally, the proportion of third-party work at this time is very low compared to the MRO work being done for the Ethiopian Airlines fleet. Third-party work is typically no more than 10% and represents a relatively small share. Now it is probably 5-8% of our total MRO activity. Long term, we would like to enhance our third-party business. It is currently small because the African airline market remains fragmented, with many smaller operators and a lot of maintenance work still being sent to Europe and the Middle East.

There’s often discussion about how Africa can retain more MRO work within the region. Is Ethiopian looking to play a role in changing that? Absolutely. There are simply not enough MRO providers in Africa, and the continent still lacks sufficient MRO capacity. Aside from significant MRO facilities in Egypt, Morocco, South Africa, Kenya and Ethiopia, there’s very little across the continent. A lack of strategy and limited investment and resources have hindered the industry in Africa. However, in the years to come, there will be initiatives to establish more MROs in certain parts of Africa. We plan to establish an MRO venture in Togo, West Africa, through a partnership with Asky Airlines, likely by early 2026. The feasibility study for this has been completed, and we are going to start the development of that MRO facility. Initially, it will be for airframe maintenance, focusing on Boeing 737 aircraft. Asky currently operates 15 737s and plans to grow this fleet further, and there’s a strong population of Boeing narrowbodies in West Africa also. Over time, we expect to expand capabilities to include other aircraft types, such as turboprop aircraft, based on their [prevalence] in the region. In a few years, we will explore having another operation somewhere in Central Africa.

Ethiopian has also been investing heavily in engine MRO capabilities. What’s the status of that expansion? In the past five years, we’ve added capability for three new engine types. These include the GE Aerospace GEnx engines for the Boeing 787, of which we have 29 in our fleet. We’ve progressed from quick-turn work to performance restoration and full shop-visit Level 2 capability, the first of its kind in Africa. Another capability is CFM International Leap-1B engines for our 737 MAX fleet, which includes 23 aircraft, with approximately 50 aircraft on order, both firm orders and options. We currently perform shop-visit Level 1 work and plan to upgrade to full overhaul (Level 2). We have also developed auxiliary power unit (APU) capability for the Honeywell GTCP 131-9A used on Airbus A320neo aircraft. These capabilities have added to our existing full overhaul capabilities for the CFM56-7 and Pratt & Whitney PW150A engines. Our next step is to enhance work­scopes—for example, the Leap-1B capability will increase from Shop Visit 1 to Shop Visit 2 overhaul and GEnx to the highest level of Performance Restoration Shop Visit 3 by adding new piece-part repairs for the engine to enhance the existing scope of capabilities. We will also consider developing new capabilities for Rolls-Royce Trent XWB engines powering A350 aircraft, pending feasibility studies.

A few years ago, Ethiopian signed a memorandum of understanding with Abu Dhabi-based Sanad for a possible partnership focusing on APU repairs. What’s the status of that partnership? That project, which initially focused on APU maintenance, did not proceed for various reasons, and we are no longer in active discussions with Sanad. However, we remain very interested in partnerships with OEMs and major global MROs to form various levels of partnerships and enhance the MRO operation in our facility. Ethiopia offers competitive labor costs, and we are interested in forming more partnerships with interested parties that we believe can bring significant mutual benefits.

How is the current global shortage of maintenance slots affecting your operations? Slot availability for engine and component maintenance is a challenge following the impact of COVID-19. The industry is still struggling as OEMs try to deliver parts on time, and it can take several months to receive spares or have repaired components returned. This is a big challenge, and I can’t say when this will be improved. For airframe maintenance, we are self-sufficient and have capacity to repair our aircraft and even handle third-party work, with room to accommodate more customer airlines. Engine maintenance repairs in our shop are experiencing a big backlog, and they are constrained by parts availability rather than capacity. We currently have several engines waiting for induction due to part delays. We have several engines lining up for induction or for repair in our engine shop.

Retaining skilled technicians and engineers is a global issue. How is Ethiopian addressing this challenge? There is a critical shortage of aviation professionals in the global industry, of pilots, technicians and engineers. Ethiopian didn’t lay off any staff during COVID and retained our core workforce. Since then, we’ve seen experienced technicians moving abroad—to the Middle East, Europe and North America—­which poses a challenge to retain them. We’ve implemented a robust retention strategy to keep our highly skilled, experienced technicians. At the same time, Ethiopia as a country has a young population and strong educational base. Through our Ethiopian Aviation University, we are training hundreds of new professionals each year. Last year, we recruited close to 800 trainees and recently graduated 235 new technicians. This pipeline will ensure we have a sufficiently skilled workforce for future growth.

Ethiopian partnered with aircraft manufacturer ATR last year on maintenance training. What was the aim of that collaboration? In Africa, the most widely used turboprop models are the De Havilland Canada Dash 8-Q400 and the ATR aircraft family. Ethiopian operates more than 30 Dash 8s and already provides MRO support for that aircraft. However, with De Havilland ceasing Q400 production after COVID, many operators are moving to ATR types. There are not many MRO providers for the ATR 42 and 72 aircraft types, which creates a big void. We partnered with ATR to establish MRO and training capabilities for the ATR 42 and 72 in Addis Ababa to fill this gap. Some of these aircraft will also be leased to partner airlines, such as Air Congo and Malawi Airlines.

Which technologies is Ethiopian prioritizing to modernize its MRO operations? Technology adoption is central to our strategy. We use different technologies to bring operational efficiencies. For example, we use an IFS Maintenix MRO management system, which supports digital, paperless maintenance processes in the operation. We’ve also worked with some manufacturers to implement real-time health monitoring for aircraft and engines, improving reliability and reducing costs. Our next technology focus is predictive maintenance. We’ve already started pilot programs with manufacturers to predict component health and schedule maintenance accordingly. We believe this will be one of the next big technologies to be adopted in airlines and MROs. We’ll continue investing in advanced digital tools to drive efficiency and reliability across our operations.

FACT FILE

Ethiopian Airlines

Founded: Established in 1945; commenced operations in 1946

Headquarters: Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Fleet: Ethiopian operates more than 160 aircraft, including the Airbus A350-900 and -1000; Boeing 737-700 and -800, 737 MAX 8, 777-200LR and -300ER, 777-9, and 787-8 and -9; and De Havilland Canada Dash 8-400. The airline also operates 777-200LRFs and 737-800Fs for cargo.

MRO facilities: Ethiopian Airlines’ maintenance business conducts work on the carrier’s own aircraft and for a growing number of third-party customers. The MRO is certified for airframe, engine and component services. It operates eight hangars in Addis Ababa and recently expanded to include a new component maintenance workshop, a two-bay widebody facility and a central warehouse.