Oman Air Positive on Increase in Seat Capacity to India

CELEBRATING THEIR 25th Anniversary of service in India, Oman’s national carrier Oman Air on Tuesday said that India being an important market for the airline standing at 15 per cent of their total sales, they are in talks with the Indian government to further increase the allocated 27,000 seat capacity. Eng. Abdul Aziz Al Raisi, CEO, Oman Air said that they are positive that the Indian Government will move forward with the request made.

Oman Air currently frequents to 11 destinations in India with 161 flights weekly, including daily flights from Goa and Jaipur. The other destinations include Mumbai, Chennai, Kochi, Thiruvananthapuram, Hyderabad, Delhi, Lucknow, Bangalore and Kozhikode.

The increase in potential between the two countries, Paul Starrs, Chief Commercial Officer of Oman Air cited that Medical and Leisure tourism leads to a lot of back and forth of travellers between both the countries. Hence looking at the potential, “we are looking to increase point to point traffic to increase our revenue,” said Starrs.

Speaking about the growth in Indian visitors to Oman, Sunil VA, Regional Vice President ISC, Oman Air, said that the country received more than three lakh visitors in 2016-17, marking a seven per cent growth year-on-year. He further said, as of September 2018, the visitor footfall to the Gulf country surged by 15 per cent, and hence the estimate for 2018 stands at 18 per cent.

The Airline added four international destinations including Istanbul, Casablanca, Moscow and Maldives in 2018. Moving ahead the carrier will fly to Athens from January 2019 onwards.