Saudi Women Air Traffic Controllers
In August 2018, Saudi Arabia’s General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA) issued five licenses for Saudi female pilots, permitting them to work as captains on Saudi Arabian Airlines aircraft, a milestone for women across the Kingdom. Two months later, Saudi officials announced that the country’s Air Navigation Services Company (SANS) was planning to employ women as air traffic controllers for the first time in the country's history. That plan has now become a reality as SANS announced this week the appointment and start of work of Saudi female air traffic controllers in Jeddah.
According to various reports, 11 Saudi women completed the ATC training program, a one-year program conducted by SANS in cooperation with the Saudi Academy of Civil Aviation, and have now began their jobs in an air traffic control center in the Red Sea port city. According to Arab News, the program is the first of its kind in the Kingdom to qualify women to work in this role.
Following the qualification of the first batch of female traffic controllers, SANS has now welcomed a second batch of 15 trainees into the program, as reported by Arabian Business. During the induction sessions, trainees were introduced to the various systems and policies implemented by SANS, as well as demonstrations and observations of real time operations.
As explained by the news site, Ryyan Tarabzoni, CEO of SANS, said the state-owned company was prioritizing the hiring of women in the profession, in line with the country’s efforts to improve women’s rights, as well as with the Saudi’s government's plans to recruit more nationals as part of the “Saudization” project.
Last July, a month after Saudi Arabia rescinded its decades-old driving ban on female motorists, 130 Saudi women applied for air traffic control training. All applicants took admission tests and went through various interviews, and final candidates were then chosen based on the results and grades they scored. As was reported by the news site, the trainee program involves the studying of 13 subjects, including physics, mathematics, aviation language, basic aerodynamic training, and tower control.
