GACA and the Society of Autism Families launch a training program to deal with passengers with autism spectrum disorder at the Kingdom's airports

The General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA), in cooperation with the Society of Autism Families, launched a comprehensive training program to deal with travelers with autism spectrum disorder for employees of the Kingdom's airports, the first phase of which started today to train 100 employees of King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh.

The program, which will be implemented in four phases, aims to introduce the characteristics and needs of people with autism, develop positive attitudes towards them, and acquire the skills to deal with people with autism in the right ways. This in order to ensure that services are provided to them with high quality, to achieve the satisfaction of travelers with autism and their families.  Furthermore, to respond to their needs in a way that ensures that the difficulties and obstacles that they and their families may face during the travel journey are overcome.

The program comes within the framework of activating the terms of the memorandum of cooperation concluded with GACA and the Society of Autism Families to raise the quality of services provided and improve the experience of people with autism through Saudi airports by enhancing the level of awareness and education of airport employees on how to deal with them, and understand their needs and meet them according to the highest  efficiency levels.

The implementation of the program also comes within the programs and objectives of GACA in developing the passenger experience in general and ensure improvement and development of the experience of people with disabilities. Moreover, it works as unifying efforts to reach a common goal of improving the experience of all passengers at the Kingdom’s airports, and create an environment compatible and comprehensive with international standards. An environment that is in line with the objectives of the Kingdom's Vision 2030.

It is worth noting that GACA is one of the first parties to take the initiative to adopt the program, in order to ensure that the employees of the Kingdom's airports are aware of ways of dealing with all categories of passengers with disabilities.