Oman Air spreads wings, offers daily flights to Goa

Dec 1, 2015, 04.30AM IST TNN

PANAJI: Given the rising demand for direct flights to Goa, Bengaluru and Kochi, Oman Air is all set to increase the frequency of its flights from Muscat to Indian cities. The national carrier of the Sultanate of Oman will operate daily flights to Goa instead of the current six flights per week. Besides this, flights from Muscat to Bengaluru and Kochi will increase to twice a day.

Oman Air will also operate 11 flights weekly to Lucknow and 10 flights per week to Jaipur as the airline scales its operations in India, a company official said. The increase in flights to Oman will come as a boon to the large Indian workforce present in the Gulf region while also spurring the flow of tourists between the two countries.

"Since we first launched flights to India in the 1990s, demand for seats aboard Oman Air's outstanding aircraft has been consistently high. We will now offer daily or double-daily flights to all 11 of our destinations in India," said Oman Air CEO Paul Gregorowitsch. "Our new flights to Goa, Bengaluru, Kochi, Lucknow and Jaipur will offer even greater choice and convenience for both, leisure and business travellers. Therefore, this will not only support the growth of tourism in Oman and India, but will also help promote vital trading partnerships between the two countries."

The additional flights will offer a total of 5,131 more seats and will be operated using Boeing 737-800 and 737-900 aircraft, a company official said. With the increase in flights, Oman Air will have a total of 126 flights per week between Muscat and its destinations in India.

The airline flies to 19 destinations in the Indian subcontinent. These include the core lands of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives, out of which 11 destinations are in India. Oman Air began flights to Goa in March 2015 and has since increased frequencies from four flights per week to six.