Oman Air to further expand and recoup market share in India

India contributes a major share of the overall network traffic for Oman Air and is one of the key markets after Oman. India will continue to be a big focus market with the increase in frequencies planned from October and then later in 2023, says Sunil V A, Country Manager India, Oman Air. In this interaction with Sunil, we also get the gist that the airline also takes an active role in shaping the future of tourism in Oman through its holiday arm.

- Prashant Nayak

Oman Airresumed scheduled India operations in March end of 2022 with a cautious approach, operating flights ranging from one to three times a week from eight key cities in India - Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Kochi, Chennai, Goa, Hyderabad, and Kozhikode. This development further boosted their customers' confidence to travel again.

All COVID-19 preventive safety precautions and procedures previously in place at airports and across Oman were lifted on May 22, 2022. As more countries lifted travel restrictions, Oman Air saw rapidly accelerating air travel growth, allowing them to connect with their passengers to the wider Oman Air network from India.

"Our load factor has steadily been increasing. By June, we were operating seven flights a week from seven cities in India, boosting frequency to 110 flights a week between India and Muscat as demand increased. Load factors continued to be 80 percent with continued demand and an increase in capacity saw the fares getting attractive. Also, we recently had a global promotion to stimulate the demand and to encourage more guests to travel. Between Muscat and operational India destinations, we introduced wide-body service, including the B787 Dreamliner and Airbus A330 in addition to the Boeing 737," shares Sunil.