Aviation management professional creates a vision for his department following IATA diplomas

Charting a career path in aviation management

Since Omar Sonbol discovered aviation at a young age, traveling with his father who works as an engineer in the airline, it has been the only industry he imagined working in. Initially wanting to be a pilot himself, he later discovered that management was the area where he could shine, and completed first a bachelor’s then a master’s degree in aviation management, in the USA. With internships at Saudia Airlines under his belt, in human resources and revenue management, he started his career at low-cost carrier flyadeal as an ancillary revenue officer, making the shift to safety management within the Saudi government’s Aviation Investigation Bureau after a few months.

How to craft a profile that stands out from the crowd With this shift and an eye on the future evolution of his career, Omar decided that a diploma in Safety Management in Civil Aviation would add value to his profile, making him stand out to talent acquisition specialists and head hunters, and broadening his options towards, perhaps, consulting or training in the future. With that diploma acquired in 2021, Omar set his sights on more management-focused training, with the aim of further enhancing his knowledge. 

Again, he wanted to differentiate himself from the crowd—this time, of people becoming PMP-certified—developing his personal brand. IATA’s Project Management Diploma offered the project management skills he was looking for, combined with an aviation focus. His initiative to pursue this training was also favorably viewed by his employer, who was willing to cover half its cost.

Industry-focused training to build knowledge and know-how

The IATA Project Management Diploma comprises two required courses: Project Management Essentials and Project Management – Advanced; and two elective courses from five, allowing each participant to tailor the relevance of the diploma to their own needs. Omar chose Lean Six Sigma in Aviation and Monitoring and Controlling Multiple Projects, for a total of 138 hours of training.

Omar most appreciated meeting and working with a variety of other people, from around the world and from other sectors. To his surprise, his classmates worked at logistics companies and in IT organizations, not just for airlines or airports, providing an interesting intercultural and interdisciplinary perspective to discussions and group projects.

Understanding that human interaction and understanding are key
During the Project Management Essentials course, which he took in Geneva, a real camaraderie developed, with people going out together in the evenings, enabling Omar to widen his network. Omar credits the instructor as being instrumental in this, binding the course participants together when she engaged them, encouraging them to talk about their different lifestyles, different organizations and ways of working. It allowed the class to compare and benchmark practices, and also learn how to understand each other and work together.

This human connection and engagement between people are one of the key differences Omar noticed with IATA compared to his experience with learning in university. In an academic setting, he found engagement by teaching staff to be limited to questions and answers, and group work to be about splitting tasks. With IATA, he realized that the instructors bring the students to interact and understand each other’s cultures and perspectives, what their reality is, and what they’re looking for. Also, the work is more practical than theoretical, and participants learn by implementing what the instructors have previously explained.

Using learning daily to move his department forward

Omar has used what he learned in both in the Safety Management in Civil Aviation diploma and the Project Management Diploma “a lot”. With the establishment of the NTSC, he realized that the four safety management system principles he learned in the first diploma could be applied to rail, land and maritime transport as well as aviation and, in fact, in many aspects of his career. 

Applying knowledge to further safety
Promoted to Operations Control Manager when the NTSC was created, he became Director of Operations in 2025 and Acting General Manager of Operations Control Center. His training with IATA has helped him understand how he can build a policy, how he can manage the risk, how he can ensure that the risks are appropriately registered within the organization, and how he can promote the organization and its work, in order to enhance safe transport.

For example, in December 2025, he was organizing safety-culture workshops for representatives of 42 government and private entities. This idea came from what he learned in the safety management courses, and he was using skills learned in the project management courses to orchestrate the logistics with the NTSC training and corporate communications departments.

Enabling teams to work together better
Additionally, the human connection aspects that Omar experienced while taking the IATA training courses have highlighted to him the need to create more friendly relationships within the workplace, to better work together. He now takes his department out to lunch once a month, to a place where everyone can feel comfortable, so they can get to know each other in different ways, having conversations that are not about work.

For the future, Omar will now concentrate on giving himself further opportunities to learn by doing, this time in the real world. Aiming to eventually become general manager of the NTSC’s Operations Control Center, he would consider further training at a later stage, in strategic leadership, to continue to build an organization that is visionary and can do remarkable things, thanks to its people. While he is aware that people’s behaviour cannot be controlled, he knows that he can control who he hires. As well as a good attitude, IATA Training would absolutely weigh heavily in the balance of any hiring decision he makes.