The six countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), which includes Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), have agreed to set up a common aviation authority.
The announcement was made by GCC Secretary-General Jasem Mohamed Al Budaiwi on December 3, 2025, following the 46th GCC Summit, which took place in Bahrain.
This new unified aviation agency will be headquartered in the United Arab Emirates and will oversee the setup of a Unified Upper Airspace management framework, as well as the rollout of the numerous Advanced Air Mobility projects currently under way in the region.
With this move, the GCC region will have an aviation regulatory framework similar to that in place in Europe, in which the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) acts as a common regulatory body for the European Union member states plus Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Switzerland.
The decision is expected to fuel the further growth of commercial aviation in the region by streamlining operational and regulatory processes. As of December 2025, the GCC region hosts 23 international airports, including some of the world’s largest hubs, plus 17 airlines.
What’s more, virtually all GCC member countries have embraced aviation as an essential vector to continue expanding their economies and have devised ambitious plans to funnel an increasing number of air travelers through their respective countries.
The unification of airspaces is one of several measures that GCC countries have adopted in order to streamline cross-border travel within the region.
In this regard, the GCC countries have also expressed their willingness to expand the ‘one-stop’ system of border checks to all member states in the near future. Under this scheme, which is already being tested between the UAE and Bahrain, citizens of the six member states will only have to complete border checks once when traveling within the GCC area.
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