Ethiopian Aviation University

Ethiopian Aviation University in Addis Ababa is Africa's largest aviation training centre, tracing its roots to a small training facility founded in the 1950s at Ethiopian Airlines' headquarters, with its Pilot Training School commissioned in 1964. Formerly the Ethiopian Aviation Academy, it was upgraded to a full university in 2023 and operates as the training arm of Ethiopian Airlines, the continent's largest carrier, alongside newly launched undergraduate and postgraduate degree programmes.

Training at Ethiopian Aviation University

Pilot training spans an eighteen-to-twenty-month Commercial Pilot Licence course with instrument and multi-engine ratings and a Multi-Crew Pilot Licence programme the university describes as the only one of its kind in Africa, flown on glass-cockpit Diamond DA40 NG and Cessna 172 aircraft with full-flight simulator support. Training is delivered at the Addis Ababa headquarters campus and at a second campus in Hawassa, inaugurated in 2023 with simulators, hangars and trainee accommodation, and the school serves as the primary cadet pipeline onto Ethiopian Airlines' flight decks.

Admission is competitive and formally staged, with academic minimums, English-language and medical requirements, and entrance examinations and interviews standing between applicants and a trainee place. For a programme that feeds directly into Africa's most successful airline, those entrance assessments carry real weight, and candidates who train systematically on aptitude-style and psychometric exercises beforehand give themselves a markedly better chance of selection.