Riyadh: Minister of Transport and Logistics Services and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the General Authority of Civil Aviation Eng. Saleh Al-Jasser signed an air services agreement with Minister of Transport and Aviation of Sierra Leone Fanday Turay, on the sidelines of the International Conference on Air Services Negotiations (ICAN 2023) of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), held in Riyadh.

The agreement is a supplement to the Convention on International Civil Aviation, also known as Chicago Convention, signed in 1944, which serves as a framework for regulating international civil aviation traffic based on the principles of fairness and equal opportunities.

The agreement aims to establish regulatory frameworks for safe and efficient air transport between the two countries. Aligning with the principles outlined in the Chicago Convention, it addresses various aspects, including granting transport rights, designation and licensing standards for airlines, air safety, aviation security, fair competition rules, and promotion of the economic interests of national carriers. The agreement facilitates the participation of national carriers of the two countries in the air transport market, ensuring the inclusion of all types of air traffic and utilizing modern market entry patterns.

The agreement is in line with the objectives of the civil aviation sector strategy, which focuses on establishing international partnerships and signing of agreements that support the ambitious goals of the strategy. These goals aim to enhance the Kingdom's air connectivity with the world, with a target of 250 destinations, to become a global logistics platform, and to transport 330 million passengers annually by 2030.