Ethiopian Airlines Group, ICAO, GECI and Micro Nav at the end of the successful Factory Acceptance Test.

Ethiopian Airlines Group (EAG), supported by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), has awarded GECI Group, in partnership with Micro Nav, a contract to supply a BEST 3D tower and radar simulator at the EAG premises in Addis Ababa.

The BEST air traffic control simulator, to be installed at EAG Addis Ababa, consists of four radar controller suites, a 12-channel monitor-based 3D BEST Tower simulator with three tower controller working positions, plus supporting data creation, supervisor, instructor and associated pseudo pilot positions. A single-solution product, BEST provides the capability to meet the requirements of ICAO and EAG now, and the flexibility to evolve as requirements change to meet future demand.

GECI will be responsible for providing all hardware and spares for the simulator, as well as the installation and commissioning in Ethiopia.

This will be the first time that EAG will use an air traffic control simulator to deliver training capability to Ethiopia, to support expected growth in the country and region.

At the beginning of December 2019, Micro Nav hosted GECI, ICAO and EAG at its premises in Bournemouth, UK, for the Factory Acceptance Test, which was completed less than three weeks after the award of the contract.

Daniel Jiménez, Managing Director for GECI, commented: “We are excited to continue our great working relationship with Micro Nav to deliver a world-class ATC simulator into Africa. We know that the Ethiopian Airlines Group will take extreme pride in their capability and use the simulator to keep the country at the forefront of aviation in Africa.”

Shane Hannam, Head of Sales & Marketing at Micro Nav, said: “It is a great honour for us to be chosen as supplier for the project delivery to ICAO and EAG with GECI, building our market share within Africa. EAG will quickly benefit from the capabilities of the BEST air traffic control simulator, providing high fidelity training from ab initio through to validation and refresher.”