His Excellency Saif Mohammed Al Suwaidi has been serving as the Director General of the UAE General Civil Aviation Authority since 2008.
Under his leadership, the UAE’s aviation sector continues to grow and flourish. The country also leads in taking reforms and bold approaches in embracing aviation-related innovative ideas and technologies that benefit both the region and the rest of the world.

Al Suwaidi was bestowed the Prime Minister’s Medal for Best Director-General in the UAE in 2017.

During the first quarter of 2023, more than 31.862 million passengers traveled through the UAE’s airports. The figure represents a 56.3 percent growth compared to the same period in 2022 when 20.381 million passengers were recorded.

Al Suwaidi said this shows that the country’s aviation industry has successfully restored pre-pandemic passenger traffic levels, affirming the world’s confidence in the UAE’s ability to recover and achieve growth.

The size of investments in the UAE’s civil aviation sector was more than approximately one trillion dirhams, while the size of investments in the development and expansion of airports reached AED85 billion to accommodate over 300 million passengers annually, the Director General also disclosed in reports.

Al Suwaidi began his career in the aviation industry in 1983 as a UAE Air Force pilot. He held various senior management positions in the UAE Air Force, including as director of Air Force Operations, before he was tapped to lead GCAA, a federal autonomous body set- up to oversee all aviation-related activities in the UAE.

Al Suwaidi is a lawyer and has a double Master’s degree. In 1995, he took up his first Master’s degree at the Command & Staff College in Cairo, Egypt. He obtained a Law Degree from the Beirut Arab University in Lebanon, graduating in 1999. He studied in China for his second Master’s degree, graduating in 2006 at the National Defense University in Beijing.