DRMumbai: Oman Air is celebrating 23 years of successful operations from Mumbai. Destination Reporter caught up with Sunil V A, Regional Vice President – India Sub-continent (ISC) at the Oman Roadshow 2018 held recently.
The national carrier of the Sultanate of Oman operates 23 direct flights daily to Muscat from India – triple daily from Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Kozhikode; double daily from Chennai, Bengaluru and Lucknow and daily from Goa. Globally, it serves 51 destinations and is the first airline to launch Boeing 737 MAX in the GCC region.
This year, Oman Air announced major network expansion plans adding Istanbul in June and Casablanca in July as new destinations.
“Our customers have a lot of interest in these places. Casablanca is a favourite destination for the GCC market from a leisure and MICE standpoint. Istanbul is hugely popular for travellers both from the ISC as well as GCC regions. We will be adding two more destinations to our network – Maldives and Moscow, by the end of the year,” says Sunil. The airline has announced its intent to fly to Athens in the summer of 2019 and is reported to be evaluating more destinations.
“Casablanca and Istanbul services have started at the perfect time. We operate the 787-900 Dreamliner to Casablanca. It offers all three classes and is witnessing excellent traction. Our service to Istanbul is seeing an overflow of bookings, and on the inaugural flight we had more than 50 passengers from India.” The airline is in fact resuming the Maldives schedule after a break caused due to an issue with slots as they were not connecting well to its European points. “Our traffic to Maldives has been primarily fed from Europe so it did not make sense if we could not connect to that market seamlessly,” says Sunil. “But matters have changed now. Today, the general business environment and tourism have boomed in Maldives, and many people are visiting the island destination not only for leisure but to work there. Hence we can promote Oman and Maldives as twin destinations across our network connecting Europe, Middle East and the Far East.”
The Muscat – Manchester service, celebrating its first anniversary, has been a roaring success. It is Oman Air’s third flight into the UK as it flies twice daily to London. In October, Oman Air tied up with Global Panorama Showcase (GPS) to fly a trade delegation of 30 partners from India to Manchester in association with Visit Britain and Marketing Manchester to promote group departures. “We had few group departures in the last two years but 2019 looks very promising.”
The First Class Mini Suite unveiled earlier this year on the 787-900 Dreamliner has been an instant hit. “We have no First Class seats available due to high demand which is a good problem to have,” beams Sunil. “We currently have it only on London and Munich sectors but as we take delivery of new aircrafts, the product will be available across most of our long-haul sectors.”
Oman Air wants to strengthen its China network but slots have been an issue. “Chinese airports where we want to go in are not offering the slots that we want,” he rues. The airline will soon formally announce an increase in frequency to Italy where it already flies to Milan daily. It is also trying to secure more slots to enhance frequency to Jakarta. There are no immediate plans to connect South Africa.
“We fly to Dar es Salaam, Zanzibar and Nairobi. We will further strengthen our connectivity to East Africa but points are not final as yet. Talks are on to increase frequencies to Paris, Frankfurt and Munich. The intent is to be able to announce new schedules this winter itself.”
Oman’s flagship carrier has been wanting to fly to Ahmedabad and Kolkata. “We wish we could start tomorrow,” says Sunil. “We have exhausted our quota. We have a little more than 27,000 seats now. Bilateral talks can be resumed only when we have demand from Indian carriers. We have seen some interest. We welcome them to Oman. Any competitor coming in will grow the market for India and Oman, and help us to go to other Indian cities,” Sunil signs off.
