Muharraq, Kingdom of Bahrain, 4th February 2013: Gulf Aviation Academy (GAA), the Kingdom's first aviation training academy, and Bahrain Airport Company (BAC) have announced signing a comprehensive training agreement to deliver aviation training services for Bahrain Airport Company and its personnel.

The signing ceremony, which was held at GAA’s facilities in Muharraq, was attended by Eng. Mahmood AlBalooshi, Chief Executive Officer, GAA and Mr. Mohamed Yousif AlBinfalah, Chief Executive Officer, Bahrain Airport Company. 

Under this agreement, GAA will be providing a wide range of specialised and accredited training services including International Air Transport Association (IATA) Airport Operations, Dangerous Goods, First Aid, Safety Management System, Fire and Safety, in addition to other soft skills and leadership courses such as Customer Service, Management Development, Aviation Higher Education Degrees and many other courses and workshops to be delivered at GAA’s training facilities at Bahrain International Airport.

On this occasion, Mr. Mohamed Yousif AlBinfalah, Chief Executive Officer, BAC said: “The training and development of our personnel comes as a priority at Bahrain Airport Company. Developing our human resources is a strategy the company have been following for the past years and it has proven most successful.”

“The Partnership between BAC and GAA is not something strange to us, with GAA being the first of its kind in the Middle East and recently rated as one of the top ten Middle East (IATA) Authorised Training Centres confirms the reason behind the long relationship and trust shared between the two companies.”
 
And he resumed: “This agreement comes as a proof of the Company’s dedication and determination to manage, operate and develop one of the leading Airports in the Middle East.”

Commenting on the agreement, Eng. Mahmood AlBalooshi, Chief Executive Officer of GAA, stated “We are delighted and proud to have partnered with such a prestigious company as Bahrain Airport Company.  GAA certainly realizes the importance of this training partnership as this step falls in line with our commitment to deliver our world class services and training programmes to organisations aspiring for growth and development in the Middle East region."

“We aim through this agreement to work together with the Human Resources Department at BAC on tailor-making training programmes to meet the needs of BAC's training requirements and will be delivering them by our specialized and highly experienced instructors.” Eng. AlBalooshi concluded.

The Academy commenced operations after its launch in early 2010, and is now one of the few internationally certified aviation training centres in the region, offering a wide range of high quality aviation training solutions. The Academy’s facilities and equipment at Bahrain International Airport are all state of the art, modern and designed around the customer.

 GAA is a UK CAA TRTO and also has Bahrain CAA / QCAA / DGCA / KDGCA / GACA training approvals and offers a wide range of high quality aviation training solutions for the aviation industry in the Middle East and North Africa region. GAA’s Simulator Centre currently has seven simulator bays with the capacity of training thousands of pilots annually.

The Academy is also an IATA Regional Training Partner (RTP) and an Authorised Training Centre (ATC).  Additionally, GAA has been recently recognised as a top ten Middle East International Air Transport Association (IATA) Authorised Training Centre (ATC) for 2012, in recognition of GAA’s outstanding contribution in developing human capital by reaching out to the next generation of leaders in the evolving air transport industry in the MENA region.