GACA shifting head offices to Riyadh

JEDDAH: General Authority for Civil Aviation’s Assistant Chief for Corporate Communications and Marketing Wael bin Mohammad Al-Sirhan said that the decision to move GACA headquarters to Riyadh is aimed at reducing operational costs.
He rejected speculation that the move might involve reducing the number of employees. He said the Council of Ministers has decided to move the GACA headquarters to Riyadh while maintaining the Jeddah headquarters as a branch. He said the move will take 18 months to complete and will not effect the work schedule of the employees.
The Jeddah branch will be “partial” to certain sectors especially in light of the existence of nominations for certain employees, whether they will be in Jeddah or Riyadh and will be decided according to the needs of the work process.
Civil aviation in the Kingdom started in 1934 when one of the oil companies, now part of ARAMCO, built an airstrip in the Jubail region. The Kingdom got its first DC 3 Dakota the following year. Regular, professional civil aviation started 10 years after that in the Kingdom.