The airline's first aircraft, an Airbus A320, arrived in Muscat on November 18, 2016 to coincide with the country’s National Day, which celebrates independence from Portuguese control in 1650. It will be followed by two additional aircraft to support its initial launch plans.
Muscat International Airport broke the one million passenger per month milestone in August 2015 in a strong year of growth for the largest two airports in the Sultanate of Oman.
The Gulf carrier received its first aircraft from the US manufacturer on October 7, 2015 and the aircraft entered service in the early hours of October 11, 2015 on the WY901 rotation between Muscat and Salalah. It operated three return flights on the route that day and is scheduled to repeat that schedule today (October 12, 2015) and through to the end of the month.
The new airport, which cost over 300 million Omani riyals, aims to enhance tourism given Salalah’s moderate weather during the summer attracts thousands of tourists from Oman and abroad. The project includes a passenger terminal, which will accommodate two million passengers per annum at the first stage and a 4km long main runway; which can accommodate even the largest airliners in the world.
With the additional flights, Qatar Airways will now have four early morning departures connecting via Doha to Europe and the Americas and four early evening departures connecting to flights in the Asia Pacific region. A mix of morning and evening flights means convenient connections for passengers from Salalah to key markets in the Qatar Airways’ route network of 146 destinations.
There are not many countries in the world where six new runways will be constructed and four brand new regional airports opened for traffic in a decade. But, that is exactly what is underway in the Sultanate of Oman over the past few years as the country seeks to diversify its economy away from relying on its oil and gas resources and to focus more on other sectors such as tourism and other areas of business.
