Ethiopian Airlines and Italian interiors company Geven-SkyTecno have inaugurated a state-of-the-art facility for the manufacturing of insulation blankets for Boeing 737 MAX airplanes as part of an agreement with Boeing.

The new joint venture company of Ethiopian Airlines and Geven-SkyTecno, named “Ethiopian Sky Technologies”, is based in Addis Ababa with primary manufacturing facility at Bole Airport.

Ethiopian Airlines holds 51% and SkyTecno 49% of the stake of the newly established company. The parties as per their commitment are jointly manufacturing the products in Italy and Ethiopia as a supplier to The Boeing Company.

Geven-SkyTecno has been contributing its process technology proficiency, manufacturing know-how as well as being responsible for speeding up the industrialization, qualification processes and training skills to the Joint Venture.

Ethiopian Airlines and SkyTecno invested in the state-of-the-art blankets manufacturing equipment to provide unrivalled customer service and product access. The Joint Venture focuses on delivering tailor-made solutions for Boeing 737 MAX airplanes. Products are manufactured in a multicultural environment in synergy between the African and European continent, subject to strict quality control, in order to meet the most demanding expectations of the aircraft industry.

"We are very pleased to announce this joint venture with Ethiopian Airlines, with whom we are looking forward to working together,” said Alberto Veneruso, Managing Director of Geven-SkyTecno.

"Our manufacturing excellence combined with our expertise in process technology, industrial efficiency and world-class distribution capabilities will provide our customers with best-in-class insulation solutions. Furthermore, Geven-SkyTecno provides the JV with a team of highly trained technical engineers with unparalleled experience meeting the demand for similar products from world airlines and OEMs.”

Mesfin Tasew, CEO of Ethiopian Airlines Group said: “We are glad to unveil a modern manufacturing facility of Ethiopian Sky Technologies at our home base, Addis Ababa. As part of our Vision to develop the Aerospace Manufacturing Industry in Ethiopia, the partnership with Geven-SkyTecno takes our capability to the next level. As we have a very well established MRO capability with an excellent track record of providing aircraft maintenance we can leverage this capability and experience to further develop our Aerospace Manufacturing capability and eventually make it one of the key Strategic Business Units of the Airline.

“We are happy that we have gone into this tri-partite relationship with Geven-SkyTecno and Boeing and that we started manufacturing and exporting the Aircraft Thermo-Acoustic Insulation Blankets for the 737 MAX. We are keen to expand the scope of activities to other aerospace products to the mutual benefit of all parties.”

Ethiopian Sky Technologies is manufacturing and delivering the aerospace products in accordance with the terms of the Agreement and the stringent requirements of the Aerospace Industry. In addition to building the aerospace manufacturing capability of Ethiopian Airlines, the partnership also enhances Ethiopia’s manufacturing infrastructure and international trade connections. – TradeArabia News Service