Aviation innovation: Laila Hareb

By her own admission, Laila Ali Saif Bin Hareb Al Muhairi knew very little about the air transport sector before she took a job at the UAE’s aviation regulator. The Emirati national left Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority to join the General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) back in 2009, and has risen through the ranks ever since.

Now the organisation’s assistant director general, Hareb is becoming an increasingly influential voice in a sector that is estimated to contribute $53bn to the UAE’s gross domestic product (GDP) by 2020. It also means that she is helping to lead the country’s negotiations on a series of key issues, such as airspace-sharing, open skies and emissions.

Right now, however, her focus is on innovation, a word that is being heard with increasing frequency this year as part of the government’s decision to declare 2015 as the ‘year of innovation’. Given that aviation supports roughly 400,000 jobs in Dubai alone, the aerospace sector forms a vital part of the UAE cabinet’s decision to launch a national strategy for innovation.

“People are always saying that we import innovation, we don’t produce it, and that’s an impression that we want to change,” Hareb says. “We want to be up there in this game — competing in aviation is based on innovation, and you can’t compete in this environment if you’re not an innovator.”

Original article by Ed Attwood

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Aviation innovation: Laila Hareb