Airliner-to-freighter conversion centre being established in Ethiopia
The Ethiopian Airlines Group has announced that it has entered into a partnership with Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) to set up a world class centre in the African country, which will convert Boeing 767-300ER airliners into freighter aircraft (designated 767 P2F). The airline group can already undertake in-country aircraft maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) activities.
“In line with our diversified aviation business model of Vision 2025, we have been increasing our cargo capacity in fleet, ground service infrastructure and cargo connectivity network,” explained Ethiopian Airlines Group CEO Tewolde GebreMariam. “Accordingly, we are partnering with IAI, one of the global technology leaders in the aerospace industry, in building a cargo conversion centre in our MRO facilities in Addis Ababa Airport.”
The airline group’s MRO facilities have previously carried out temporary conversions of 25 of Ethiopian’s own airliners, to provide a short-term augmentation of its air cargo capacity. This was to meet the soaring demand for the transport of emergency medical supplies resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic.
“We are witnessing a sharp rise in the demand for cargo aircraft as a result of the rise in e-commerce, which has peaked to record levels during the Covid-19 pandemic,” pointed out IAI executive VP and Aviation Group MD Yossi Melamed. “IAI has an excellent reputation as a conversion centre of passenger-to-freighters aircraft, and we are constantly receiving requests to open such conversion centres in more and more locations around the world.”
This will be the third such conversion centre established be IAI, the first being in Israel itself and the second being in Mexico. The new centre will start work by converting three of Ethiopian’s own 767-300s. But it will expand its work to cover the whole of Africa and the wider region.
“We are very happy that we are able to collaborate with IAI to enable us to expand our cargo and logistics services, which is [sic] already the largest and leading cargo network in Africa,” affirmed GebreMariam. “The capacity building will also help us expand our MRO services with cutting edge technology and knowledge transfer.”
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