When Mo. Ashmawy was a child, he would wait for his father to return from trips across the world and wanting to hear stories about each country's culture, food, history and the souvenirs. He would go with to pick up or drop off his father at the airport for each trip, which turned it into his dream gateway to the world.
“I enjoy being a passenger and always relish the entire experience, even when it is painful, like when your luggage been delayed or exotic, like when you have been upgraded to first-class because of double booking. Both of these accidents happened to me on one trip,” he said. “And the moment I was offered a role in an airport project, I did not think twice even it required relocation, and for 12 years now, I am enjoying building airports.”
As an aviation manager - project controls for AECOM, Ashmawy gets to manage complex aviation projects at airports. He has more than 10 years of a diverse career in the aviation sector. This experience has enabled him to build a robust set of transferable skills to lead the aviation complex programs from inception until completion including Operational Readiness, Activation, and Transition (ORAT).
His soft landing concept is inspired by the Federal Aviation Administration FAA Pilot Capabilities vs. Task Requirements during the various phases of any given flight, and project closeout is another area where even the best-laid plans begin to unravel.
Ashmawy highlighted that transferring a construction building to functioning airports is the art of dealing with complexity at every level from business, operational and process, each level exhibits a high degree of high entropy.
He’s passionate about aviation, loves the challenge of building consensus with numerous stakeholders to manage the expectations from concept through completion on complex programs, which is more apparent on aviation projects, where close coordination with the construction management is ongoing to limit the impact to airport's readiness for operations.
“The challenge of managing complex aviation projects and aligning numerous stakeholders to reach the day one of operation makes me excited about what I am doing,” he said. “We say airport projects are a city-in-a-box. You have everything you can imagine running a city within the airport facilities, so when you are lucky to live the experience of delivering a mega airport, it considers the most advanced work experience. I feel lucky as I was part of two mega airports, working with ARINC in DOH 6.5 million square feet and AECOM in the AUH 8 million square feet projects in the last 12 years.”
