RIYADH — The General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA), through its strict preventive measures to deal with the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), has provided hundreds of youth from its ranks an opportunity to work to implement precautionary and preventive measures necessary to combat this pandemic. GACA has provided these qualified young Saudi men, who are capable and trained in the latest technologies and who have proven their competence in fieldwork. Furthermore, they’ve worked to ensure the continuous flow of goods and services in the air outlets around the clock with a view to continuing freight and sustaining smooth supply operations. The young Saudis also assure the arrival of necessary goods and products and maintain the flow of goods to the airfreight stations around the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia"s airports in a safe and secure manner, and in accordance to the best international standards. These worthy accomplishments come from the keenness of GACA to give and empower young leaders and provide them the opportunity to work in its various sectors, whether leadership, technical, administrative, or operational jobs. GACA believes in the role of Saudi youth in developing and strengthening the aviation sector, which is playing a major role in all disciplines and is in line with the Kingdom’s Vision 2030. Because of its belief in the importance of young Saudi leaders, GACA has implemented an approved plan to meet the needs of specialized human cadres in the field of aviation sciences, in addition to developing the performance of workers in the security and safety of air transport in accordance with the highest international standards. GACA has empowered Saudi women to work in various fields in the Kingdom’s civil aviation sector. This includes engineering in all its specialties (mechanical, architectural). They’re also making headway in finance, insurance, contracts, procurement, legal, and air control, in addition to, aviation safety and security and economic licensing. In this regard, GACA has undertaken many initiatives, programs and courses, including the "Future Leaders" program. This program aims to train and qualify Saudi trainees. These trainees need to be new distinguished graduates with bachelor"s and master"s degrees in aviation science, aviation safety, airport administration, aviation management, and airport safety. These cadres are being qualified to work in operational specialized fields at various airports around the Kingdom. This is within the framework of GACA’s endeavor to keep pace with current and future developments. The program also includes specific areas that guarantee applicants passing several stages and are subjected to continuous evaluation at each stage of the program, in addition to designing an integrated and scheduled plan that includes theoretical training and on-the-job training for the trainees. Furthermore, efforts are made to develop their capabilities and instill in them a distinguished training in order to gain experience and skills that they will apply after graduation. Five batches have graduated from the Future Leaders Program, since the start. The first batch was in 2015, whereas the fourth batch of the program was totally dedicated to female cadre. In that particular batch, 20 female trainees (holders of bachelors and master degrees) were enrolled in the specialized operational and administrative fields to work in several sectors at GACA. This was done to raise the percentage of Saudi women’s participation in the sector, finding equal job opportunities for the people of this country in various sectors while qualifying them, investing in their energies, giving them the necessary expertise, and developing their capabilities. Meanwhile, to refine, train and develop national cadres in accordance with the highest levels and to the finest international standards and obtain excellent training in disciplines related to the civil aviation sector, GACA provided 430 training programs in 2019 with 4,968 training seats available. The training was done as follows: 2,304 training seats for the Saudi Academy of Civil Aviation program and 1,608 training seats were available for distance education programs (enrichment), 151 training seats for the Public Institute of Management program and 905 training seats were dedicated to the rest of the training entities. In regards to the scholarship program abroad, GACA has enrolled 89 employees in the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques program for external scholarship "Your job, your scholarship" for the academic disciplines of (Air Traffic Control Diploma, Bachelor and Master). Seats that were allocated to GACA as per the specialization were as follows: Master degree, (cyber security), Bachelor"s degree (Air Traffic Management, Aviation Management, Airport Management, Diplomatic Relations, International Relations, Aviation Science, Electronic Engineering, Software Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Safety Engineering, Network and Communications Engineering). This is in addition to Diploma specializing in Air Traffic Control. With regard to specialized programs, the number of programs has reached 368 benefiting 2,440 trainees, while the number of specialized centers has reached 27. This includes (IATA, ICAO, ACI, Saudi Academy of Civil Aviation, Dubai Police, and the Joint Aviation Authorities Training Organization (JAATO). Meanwhile, the number of male and female students trained in accordance with the cooperative training program reached 104. — SPA