GACA is Saudi Arabia’s General Authority of Civil Aviation, the regulator at the centre of the Kingdom’s airport, airline, safety, and air-connectivity expansion. Headquartered in Riyadh and led by President Abdulaziz Al-Duailej (appointed 2021), GACA coordinates the aviation plank of Vision 2030, including the 2030 target of approximately 330 million passenger throughput, connectivity to more than 250 international destinations, the launch of new national carriers, and airport expansion anchored by King Salman International Airport, King Abdulaziz International Airport, and the broader Saudi airport network.
The institutional weight GACA carries within the Saudi state is unusually substantial for a civil aviation regulator. Where comparable jurisdictions typically operate civil aviation regulators as ministerial-subordinate technical authorities — the FAA reporting to the US Department of Transportation, the EASA operating under the European Commission, the CAA UK reporting to the Department for Transport — GACA operates as a direct interagency authority with substantial autonomy, with Al-Duailej simultaneously serving as Chairman of Matarat Holding (the PIF-owned company that owns and operates Saudi Arabia’s airport infrastructure) and as President of the Executive Council of the Arab Civil Aviation Organization (ACAO). The dual operational and regulatory authority Al-Duailej carries reflects the Saudi institutional preference for unified command at the senior leadership level for sectors where Vision 2030 delivery cadence requires the removal of inter-agency coordination friction. The combination of regulator authority, airport operator chairmanship, and broader Arab regional aviation institutional positioning produces the institutional concentration that has allowed GACA to deliver the third consecutive year of record-breaking passenger growth through 2025 — 140.9 million passengers carried in 2025 versus 128 million in 2024 versus 112 million in 2023, a compound annual growth rate of approximately 12 per cent across the three-year window that no comparable major-economy aviation system has matched.
The 2026 operational outlook expands the trajectory further. GACA’s January 2026 announcement at the 19th Saudi Aviation Sector Steering Committee confirmed plans to launch more than 30 new domestic and international flight routes during 2026, to extend international connectivity beyond the 2025 baseline of 176 destinations, and to empower the private sector in airport development at scales beyond the historic state-led airport development model. The institutional architecture supporting these targets includes the Future Aviation Forum 2026 (held 20-22 April 2026 under the patronage of King Salman, attracting more than 11,000 global aviation experts), the Routes World 2026 (the 31st World Route Development Forum, scheduled for Riyadh under GACA-led organisation), and the broader portfolio of regulatory licensing decisions, airport infrastructure approvals, and operational coordination outputs that GACA delivers across the calendar year. The 2026 operational delivery has been complicated by the regional security disruption following the late-February 2026 Iran conflict and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which has required GACA to reroute approximately 41,000 flights through alternative airspace, demonstrating what Al-Duailej has framed as “the region’s agility, coordination, and commitment to maintaining operational continuity.”
Quick Facts
- Established: 1934 as Civil Aviation Administration; current GACA form through subsequent institutional reform
- Headquarters: Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
- President (since 2021): HE Abdulaziz Al-Duailej
- Concurrent positions: Chairman of Matarat Holding (PIF-owned airport operator); President, Executive Council of the Arab Civil Aviation Organization (ACAO)
- Reports to: Implicit ministerial-level coordination through Saudi Council of Ministers; Minister of Transport and Logistics Services HE Saleh Al-Jasser as portfolio cabinet anchor
- 2025 passenger throughput: 140.9 million (9.6% YoY)
- 2025 flights: 980,000 (8.3% YoY)
- 2024 passenger throughput: 128 million (15% YoY; 25% above pre-pandemic baseline)
- International destinations served (2025): 176 (3.5% YoY; 78% above pre-pandemic baseline)
- IATA Air Connectivity Index rank (2025): 17th globally
- Domestic passengers (2025): 65 million
- International passengers (2025): 76 million (10.2% YoY)
- Cargo (H1 2025): 575,000 tons
- 2026 target: 30+ new domestic and international routes; expanded private-sector airport development
- 2030 target: ~330 million passenger throughput
- Aircraft on order across national airlines: 500+
- Major institutional events (GACA-led): Future Aviation Forum (annual since 2022) · Routes World 2026 · Saudi Aviation Sector Steering Committee
- Strategic anchor: Vision 2030 · Saudi Aviation Strategy · National Transport and Logistics Strategy · Pilgrim Experience Programme · Saudi Tourism Authority 150M visitors target
What GACA Is
The General Authority of Civil Aviation traces its institutional origins to 1934 — the year the Civil Aviation Administration was established to oversee Saudi air traffic control during the early period of regional commercial aviation development. The 1934 establishment placed the Saudi civil aviation institutional architecture among the older national civil aviation authorities globally, predating the post-World War II proliferation of national civil aviation authorities by more than a decade. The institutional form has subsequently evolved through several major restructurings, including the establishment of the Presidency of Civil Aviation (PCA) when the original consolidated aviation institution was split into civil and military components (with the Royal Saudi Air Force taking the military aviation portfolio), and the contemporary GACA form that the institution has operated under since the 2000s.
The strategic logic underpinning GACA’s contemporary mandate operates on five distinct registers, each contributing to the institutional case for the substantial state resources committed to Saudi civil aviation expansion.
The first is Vision 2030 tourism delivery infrastructure. The Saudi commitment to attract 150 million annual visitors by 2030 — already more than half-delivered with 120+ million visitors achieved cumulatively by April 2026 per Deputy Minister for Tourism Destination Enablement Mahmoud Abdulhadi’s recent announcement — depends on the air capacity to support those flows. Inbound tourism at the 150-million scale requires international air connectivity at scales that no current Saudi airport infrastructure can support without substantial expansion. GACA’s regulatory and infrastructure delivery role is the operational mechanism through which the air capacity is being added.
The second register is religious tourism (Hajj and Umrah) capacity expansion. The Saudi religious tourism capacity expansion — already a substantial fraction of total Saudi inbound aviation flows through Jeddah’s King Abdulaziz International Airport (KAIA) and Madinah’s Prince Mohammad bin Abdulaziz International Airport — depends on continued infrastructure expansion to handle the multi-fold pilgrim flow targets that the broader Pilgrim Experience Programme has established. GACA’s special operational coordination during Hajj and Umrah seasons, and the broader infrastructure delivery supporting religious tourism flows, represents one of the more institutionally consequential dimensions of the broader civil aviation mandate.
The third register is logistics and cargo connectivity. Saudi Arabia’s broader logistics ambition under the National Transport and Logistics Strategy positions the Kingdom as a regional logistics hub connecting Asia, Africa, and Europe through the Saudi geographic position. The 575,000 tons of cargo processed in H1 2025 alone reflects the substantial cargo throughput that the contemporary infrastructure is delivering, with the FedEx and Swissport licensing providing additional international cargo capacity. The continued expansion of the cargo connectivity is the operational mechanism through which the broader logistics ambition is delivered.
The fourth register is regional aviation hub competition with Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Doha. The Gulf Cooperation Council aviation hub competition — Dubai International (the longest-established global hub), Abu Dhabi (the secondary UAE hub), Doha’s Hamad International (the Qatar Airways hub), Bahrain’s Manama International (the smaller Gulf hub) — has been substantially shaped by the major airline-airport pairings that have anchored each hub. The Saudi institutional positioning under Riyadh Air (the new full-service carrier) plus King Salman International Airport plus the broader Saudi airport infrastructure represents the institutional positioning to compete with the established Gulf hubs at meaningful scale, with GACA providing the regulatory and strategic architecture supporting the competitive expansion.
The fifth register is multilateral aviation institutional positioning. Al-Duailej’s role as President of the Executive Council of the Arab Civil Aviation Organization (ACAO) positions Saudi Arabia at the institutional centre of the broader Arab regional aviation policy conversation. The Saudi institutional positioning within the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) through the broader regulatory cooperation framework, the participation in the Airports Council International (ACI) governance, and the broader multilateral aviation institutional engagement provides the institutional credibility that supports the Saudi aviation expansion at the international institutional level.
The combination of these five registers produces an institutional case for GACA’s contemporary mandate that operates beyond pure regulatory technical work, justifying the substantial state resources and senior-level political attention that the institution receives.
Leadership
GACA is led by HE Abdulaziz Al-Duailej as President, a position he has held since his appointment in 2021. Al-Duailej’s institutional positioning is structurally distinctive within the Saudi state architecture because of the dual operational and regulatory authority that his concurrent positions produce.
As GACA President, Al-Duailej carries the regulatory authority for Saudi civil aviation — the licensing of carriers and service providers, the regulatory framework for aviation safety, the airport regulatory architecture, the passenger rights protection framework, the environmental sustainability standards, the broader regulatory portfolio that contemporary civil aviation operates within.
As Chairman of Matarat Holding, Al-Duailej carries the operator authority for Saudi Arabia’s airport infrastructure. Matarat Holding — the PIF-owned company that owns and operates Saudi Arabia’s airports — is the institutional vehicle through which Saudi airport infrastructure expansion has been delivered. Al-Duailej’s chairmanship of Matarat alongside his GACA presidency provides unified command at the senior leadership level over both the regulator and the principal operator, removing the inter-agency coordination friction that comparable jurisdictions experience between aviation regulators and airport operators.
As President of the Executive Council of the Arab Civil Aviation Organization (ACAO), Al-Duailej carries the broader Arab regional institutional positioning that supports Saudi institutional credibility within multilateral aviation governance.
The dual-and-triple institutional authority is structurally distinctive and is one of the institutional features that has enabled the rapid Saudi aviation expansion. Comparable jurisdictions typically separate regulatory authority from airport operator authority — the FAA does not operate US airports, EASA does not own European airports, CAA UK does not own UK airports — to avoid the perceived conflict of interest that combining regulator and operator roles would create. The Saudi institutional design accepts the consolidation of regulatory and operator authority at the senior leadership level as the operational price of the delivery cadence Vision 2030 requires.
The Saudi Aviation Sector Steering Committee — chaired by Al-Duailej and meeting periodically (the 19th meeting was held in late January 2026, releasing the 2025 Air Traffic Report) — provides the inter-institutional coordination architecture across the broader Saudi aviation ecosystem. The Steering Committee’s role is structurally important because it brings the regulator, the airport operator, the carriers (Saudia, Riyadh Air, flynas, flyadeal, the Air Arabia Alliance), the tourism authority, and the broader institutional cohort together at the senior level on a recurring basis.
The cabinet-level political anchor for the broader aviation portfolio is HE Saleh Al-Jasser, Minister of Transport and Logistics Services, whose ministerial portfolio encompasses both aviation and the broader transport and logistics sector. Al-Jasser’s coordinating role provides the cabinet-level institutional weight that the broader aviation expansion depends on, with GACA operating with substantial autonomy within the broader Ministry coordination framework.
The 2025 Operational Track Record
GACA’s 2025 operational performance — formally documented in the 2025 Air Traffic Report released at the 19th Saudi Aviation Sector Steering Committee meeting in late January 2026 — represents the third consecutive year of record-breaking passenger growth and provides the operational baseline against which the 2026 and 2030 targets are calibrated.
Total passenger throughput: 140.9 million passengers carried during 2025, representing a 9.6 per cent year-on-year growth from the 128 million 2024 baseline. The 140.9 million figure positions Saudi Arabia among the larger national civil aviation systems globally and represents a substantial step up from the ~76 million pre-pandemic baseline (2019).
Total flights: 980,000 flights operated during 2025, an 8.3 per cent year-on-year increase from 2024. The flight count growth slightly trailing the passenger growth indicates expanding aircraft size and load factor utilisation across the operating fleet — efficiency gains that complement the pure capacity expansion.
International passengers: 76 million, representing a 10.2 per cent year-on-year growth. The international passenger growth outpacing the overall growth rate reflects the strategic priority placed on inbound international tourism connectivity.
Domestic passengers: 65 million, providing the operational base that supports inter-city connectivity within Saudi Arabia.
International destinations served: 176, a 3.5 per cent year-on-year increase, and 78 per cent above the pre-pandemic baseline. The destination expansion has been delivered through Saudia’s network growth, the launch operations of Riyadh Air, flynas’s continued international expansion, and flyadeal’s progressively widening route map.
IATA Air Connectivity Index ranking: 17th globally — surpassing the 2024 target and positioning Saudi Arabia within the upper-middle tier of globally connected aviation jurisdictions.
Top airports by passenger throughput:
- Jeddah King Abdulaziz International Airport (KAIA): 53.4 million passengers — the busiest airport in Saudi Arabia, accounting for more than one-third of total Saudi airport traffic
- Riyadh King Khalid International Airport: 29% of national passenger throughput — approximately 41 million passengers (operating at ~112,000 daily passengers)
- Madinah Prince Mohammad bin Abdulaziz International Airport: 137% utilisation rate
- Dammam King Fahd International Airport: 112% utilisation rate
The high utilisation rates at Madinah and Dammam (both above 100% of designed capacity) reflect the operational pressure that the rapid demand growth has placed on existing airport infrastructure, and provide the institutional case for the substantial airport expansion programme that GACA is overseeing.
H1 2025 detail: 66.7 million passengers, 467,000 flights, 575,000 tons of cargo — confirming the second-half acceleration that produced the 140.9 million annual total.
The 2026 Operational Programme
GACA’s 2026 operational programme, announced at the 19th Saudi Aviation Sector Steering Committee meeting and at the February 2026 Future Aviation Forum launch, includes:
More than 30 new domestic and international flight routes to be launched during 2026. The route expansion supports both inbound tourism connectivity and outbound Saudi traveller access to additional international destinations.
Empowerment of the private sector in airport development. The institutional shift toward private-sector airport development represents a substantial change from the historic state-led airport development model. The shift opens opportunity for international airport operators (Vinci Airports, Fraport, Heathrow Airport Holdings, ADP, Munich Airport International, Schiphol Group, and others) to participate in Saudi airport development through concession, build-operate-transfer, or equity participation arrangements.
Capacity expansion across the airport portfolio. The major capacity expansions include the multi-phase King Abdulaziz International Airport (KAIA) Jeddah expansion (from approximately 50 million passengers today to 80-114 million annually by 2030, eventually 100 million by 2035), the King Salman International Airport (KSIA) Riyadh delivery (projected 120 million passengers by 2030 and 185 million by 2050), and the broader portfolio of regional airport capacity expansions.
Operational readiness for Hajj and Umrah pilgrim flows. Special attention has been allocated to operational readiness and the deployment of national workforce talent to support pilgrims during the 2026 Hajj and Umrah seasons. The pilgrim aviation operations represent one of the most institutionally consequential annual operational deliverables that GACA coordinates.
Air Arabia Alliance launch. GACA announced the Air Arabia Alliance as the winner of the competition for a new national low-cost carrier based in Dammam. The new carrier will operate domestic and international flights from King Fahd International Airport, expected to serve 24 domestic and 57 international destinations, and aiming to connect approximately 10 million passengers annually through KFIA by 2030. The Air Arabia Alliance will create over 2,400 direct jobs and is expected to begin operations in 2026 following completion of licensing procedures.
Routes World 2026 and Future Aviation Forum 2026. The two major institutional events of the GACA 2026 calendar — Routes World 2026 (the 31st World Route Development Forum) and the Future Aviation Forum 2026 (held 20-22 April 2026 under King Salman patronage with 11,000+ global aviation experts) — provide the operational architecture for the major commercial dealmaking and senior-level institutional engagement that anchors the broader Saudi aviation expansion.
Major Institutional Events
GACA’s institutional event architecture includes two flagship gatherings.
Future Aviation Forum (FAF)
The Future Aviation Forum is GACA’s flagship aviation policy and commercial gathering, recognised by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) as the premier global leadership forum for aviation. The 2024 edition produced more than 100 agreements and $20 billion in deals. The 2026 edition (20-22 April 2026), held under the patronage of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman bin Abdulaziz, attracted more than 11,000 global aviation experts and leaders, including ministers, regulators, manufacturers (Boeing, Airbus, Embraer, the broader manufacturer cohort), airlines, and airports. The 2026 theme — “Unlocking Global Growth, Designing the Future Sky” — addressed manufacturing supply chains, capacity constraints, geopolitical disruptions, and human capital development.
The 2028 and 2030 editions are confirmed to be delivered in partnership with Richard Attias and Associates (majority-owned by the Saudi Public Investment Fund), reflecting the institutional sustainability of the FAF architecture across the broader Vision 2030 horizon.
Routes World 2026
The 31st World Route Development Forum — Routes World 2026 — was awarded to Riyadh in September 2025 in a competition that recognised Saudi Arabia’s substantial aviation sector growth, infrastructure investment programme, and Vision 2030 tourism agenda. The event will be officially led by GACA in partnership with the Saudi Tourism Authority (STA) as tourism partner, the Air Connectivity Programme (ACP) as air connectivity partner, and Matarat Holding as airport partner, organised by Tahaluf.
Routes World is the leading international platform where airlines, airports, tourism authorities, and aviation stakeholders plan and negotiate future air services. The Riyadh hosting represents Saudi Arabia’s emergence as a host venue for the highest-level international aviation route development gathering.
The 2026 Iran-Hormuz Disruption
The escalation of the Iran conflict and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz from late February 2026 produced one of the more operationally consequential disruptions GACA has navigated in its contemporary form. The closure forced the rerouting of approximately 41,000 flights through alternative airspace, with GACA coordinating the operational response across the carriers, the airports, the broader Gulf aviation system, and the international institutional architecture.
Al-Duailej’s framing of the response — that the Saudi response demonstrated “the region’s agility, coordination, and commitment to maintaining operational continuity” — captures the institutional self-conception that GACA brought to the disruption response. The 41,000-flight rerouting represents one of the larger airspace disruption responses in contemporary aviation history, and the Saudi institutional capacity to coordinate the response at scale provides operational evidence supporting the broader Saudi aviation institutional credibility.
The Hormuz disruption has also produced second-order effects across the broader Saudi aviation institutional calendar, including the postponement of LEAP 2026, the Arabian Travel Market, and the Middle East Energy event, all of which were rescheduled into the August-September 2026 window.