It is not always easy for a woman to tread on a path which leads to a male bastion. It requires a woman with a great passion for challenge, grit and determination to succeed -- whether it is, as the first female air traffic controller in the UAE or the site manager of a petrol station. It takes a woman like Naila Al Moosawi, writes Vijaya George.


"I was there when the Indian Airlines flight was hijacked; I spoke to the pilots," she says in a hushed voice, the excitement twinkling in her eyes, as she recounts the Kathmandu to New Delhi flight that was hijacked by Kashmiri militants on December 24, 1999. When the aircraft was given permission to stop at Dubai for refuelling, they were diverted to a military airbase near Dubai. Landing at the Dubai International Airport was out of the question. In fact, "we closed each and every single light so that they couldn't spot the airport from the air," she remembers.

At 24, Naila Al Moosawi has a lot to be excited about. After all, she distinguished herself as the country's only woman air traffic controller until, sadly, last year, when she quit. When she did make a comeback this year, it was to break new ground again -- this time as the first and only female site manager employed at Emirates National Oil Company (ENOC).

In the UAE, primarily in Dubai, the fact that national women are gradually moving into the higher echelons of power -- thus far deemed strictly male territory -- is still a bit of a cultural shock. But pleasantly, these women are handling their fame with more ease than people would have given them credit. And if they find that their career is detrimental to their family life, they also have the courage to step down as Naila did, from her position as Air Traffic Controller.

Her family tried to dissuade her from taking such a drastic step. Her parents tried to stop her. "My husband said, 'You worked so hard to get this far. Don't give it up'. But I knew my baby needed me," she explains. "If there was an emergency in my family I could not say 'Please excuse me, I have to go home'. And there was a situation where my baby was sick and there was nothing I could do about it. I could not split myself equally between my family and that kind of job. Then one day, I realised that there was something more important to me than my job. So I quit."

The decision broke her heart. "I was devastated," she recalls. But she resolved to get out of it while she could. Better now "because I am young," she says. "I can still grow in another environment". Eight months down the line, Naila was learning how to pump petrol into cars and change oil. "I chose to learn how to do it because it is part of my job as site manager to know every aspect of the station."

This young national woman never trod the rosy path to a career. She is no recipient of the country's benevolent attempts to empower its women. After her secondary schooling in Wales during which she stayed with an English family, she came back to Dubai, did a couple of years in Cambridge High School, while she considered studying law. But there was a problem. "Arabic law is Arabic law. There is no English there," she says and "I am more comfortable with English."

But she was not one to give up. She happened to come across some material on Air Traffic Control and she was hooked. The US would be the place to do a course in Air Traffic Control, she thought, but her father advised her to check if Dubai followed the same system as the US.

After trying for several days to get in touch with somebody at the Civil Aviation Department, she went to the place, walked up to the Manager's office. "Luckily, the Secretary wasn't there," she giggles naughtily. "I told him, 'Sorry! I know you are busy but I just need to ask you one question. I want to study Air Traffic Control in the States. If I do and I pass, will I be able to get a job here when I come back'." Unfortunately not, it seemed for the US follows the FAA (Federal Aviation Authority) system for Air Traffic Control while Dubai follows the British system.

But the man she met, she learnt later, was the Senior Traffic Controller and he must have been impressed with what he saw -- a confident and determined young national woman. He asked her to leave her CV with him. Two days later, she was asked to come in for an interview and was offered a job as a trainee with the Department.

That was the beginning for Naila. "I started in a clerical position. From scratch!" she emphasises. From there, she gradually worked her way up to the Traffic Controller Assistant's desk. But more was coming! She was offered a seat at the Aviation College. "I was the only woman there and I came first among all the boys," she says, proudly. "And when I got back, I went into training again. Training as in hot seat," she says, closing her eyes, as if to recapture the elation she felt then, of having come so close to realising her biggest dream.

Three years in the "hot seat", communicating with pilots and working at an exciting career as the first woman air traffic controller in the UAE, and she quit. The decision still saddens her but she believes she made the right choice. At least at ENOC, she doesn't have to do night shifts. She could get home at earthly hours.

Getting into ENOC was not easy for Naila. "They had to have a lot of procedures to actually have a woman to lead. Because you are a woman they test you again and again to see if this is really what you want," says Naila, who suspects she was grilled a lot more than male candidates who applied for the post. But an aptitude test, several interviews and presentations later, the job was hers.

News has travelled that a national woman is managing the ENOC site at Mamzar. "Some mothers come in with seven to twelve children. She comes in to my office, we sit and chat and drink tea ... and by the time, she has to go out, those kids have opened all the candy wrappers in the shop and she has to pay for all of them," she laughs. Work at ENOC is incredibly hectic but Naila is beginning to enjoy it. Will her new role be as exciting as controlling air traffic? She gently sidesteps that issue. For now, she's content to take it "one day at a time" and return home to her family every evening.

"I was there when the Indian Airlines flight was hijacked; I spoke to the pilots."

"One fine day I realised that there was something more important than that job."

"I cannot imagine myself going anywhere without my family. I tried that once. I went to Malaysia without my baby. She was just 8 months old. I left her at home. I went to Kuala Lampur. But I caught the next plane home."