Airbus and South African flight training provider ALT Academy signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on 16 September 2026 at the Africa Aerospace and Defence (AAD) Expo in the City of Tshwane, South Africa, agreeing to explore joint aircraft maintenance training programmes.
Ryan van Wijk, chief executive of ALT Academy, signed the agreement alongside Timo Eckardt, head of customer support for Airbus Africa. Nam-Binh Hoang, Airbus country representative in South Africa, also spoke at the signing, which took place during the AAD exhibition at Air Force Base Waterkloof. The event drew manufacturers, airlines and defence ministries from across the continent, and the maintenance training gap was a recurring theme on the show floor.
Under the MoU, the two organisations will work out which training courses and learning tools to build together. The stated goal is to close the distance between what trainee engineers learn in the classroom and what airlines and operators actually need on the hangar floor. ALT Academy already runs a sizeable training operation out of Kempton Park, including Airbus A320 and Boeing 737 simulator courses, and has expanded into early stage, or “ab initio,” pilot training in recent years.
Van Wijk said modern aircraft now demand a level of technical training that is hard for any single institution to build on its own. “This partnership is an important step in our commitment to building practical, high-quality maintenance training capacity in South Africa,” he said, adding that it would let the academy draw on current manufacturer knowledge while holding firm on safety and regulatory standards.
Hoang framed the deal as part of a longer pattern of Airbus investment in African training capacity. “By combining our industry-leading learning solutions with ALT Academy’s dedication to practical education, we are proud to support the development of a robust pipeline of highly skilled professionals,” he said.
AAD is Africa’s largest combined air show and defence exhibition, held every two years and typically used by manufacturers to announce training, support and procurement agreements alongside hardware deals. This year’s edition drew a mix of airlines, air forces and training providers, and maintenance capacity was a running theme across several stands, not just the Airbus one. Boeing also expanded its own African training activity in 2026, a sign that manufacturers increasingly see training partnerships, not just aircraft sales, as a way to build long-term relationships with African operators.
It is worth being precise about what the MoU actually is. It sets up a framework for cooperation, not a finished course. Airbus and ALT Academy have not yet announced curriculum, accreditation status, entry requirements, start dates or enrolment numbers; those details, according to both organisations, will follow once the programmes are finalised and cleared by the relevant regulators.
That gap between manufacturer-grade maintenance knowledge and locally available training capacity is a real constraint on African aviation, civil and military alike. Modern airliners and military transports carry far more avionics, composite structures and software-driven systems than the aircraft many African maintenance schools were originally set up to teach. Airlines and air forces that cannot train enough qualified aircraft maintenance engineers (AMEs) locally end up sending staff overseas for type training or leaning on expatriate technicians, both of which add cost and slow fleet availability.
The MoU fits a broader pattern of manufacturer-backed training deals across the continent this year. In May 2026 Airbus signed an MoU with Nigeria’s federal government covering aviation infrastructure, crew and maintenance training, and advisory support on maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) work, agreed during a visit by aviation minister Festus Keyamo to Airbus’s Toulouse headquarters. In November 2025, Airbus Flight Academy and Tunisia’s Aviator Institute agreed to introduce ab initio pilot training for the African and Middle East market. Airbus has also had a long-running relationship with Egypt, where the manufacturer has held a five-year performance-based support contract since 2021 covering the Egyptian Air Force’s fleet of 24 C-295 tactical transports, a deal that includes on-site technical support and on-wing maintenance.
For defence planners, the relevance goes beyond airline MRO. Many African air forces operate Airbus military types, including the C-295 and H125 helicopter, and some of those same aircraft share maintenance disciplines, tooling and inspection techniques with civil platforms. A stronger civilian AME pipeline in South Africa, built on manufacturer-aligned standards, widens the pool of technicians that regional air forces and defence contractors can eventually draw on, even though this particular MoU is a civil aviation training arrangement rather than a defence contract.
South Africa also has an existing base to build on. ALT Academy’s Kempton Park facility sits close to OR Tambo International Airport and already runs simulator and maintenance-adjacent training for two of the most common airliner families in African fleets, the A320 and the 737. Layering Airbus manufacturer content onto that base, rather than starting from scratch, is likely why both sides moved relatively quickly from expo handshake to signed MoU.
Airbus and ALT Academy have committed to publishing course content, accreditation pathways and enrolment details once the programmes are approved, and that is the point worth watching. Until specific courses, intake numbers and regulatory sign-off are announced, the MoU should be read as a statement of intent rather than a new training pipeline already up and running.
The timing still matters. African carriers are adding newer, more automated aircraft faster than most local training schools were built to handle, and every manufacturer-backed agreement narrows that gap by a little. If Airbus and ALT Academy move from framework to an approved curriculum in the coming months, South Africa would gain one of the more credible manufacturer-aligned maintenance training pipelines on the continent.