TravTalk India Online Magazine
Oman Air completed 24 years of operation in India. Paul Gregorowitsch, CEO, Oman Air, visited India to meet travel and commercial partners in the country. In an exclusive interaction with TRAVTALK, he talked about the company’s expansion plans and India as a potential market.
NISHA VERMA
Q How important has India been as a market for Oman Air?
India and Sultanate of Oman have had a long-lasting relationship through centuries. Twenty-four years ago, one of our first international destinations outside Oman was Trivandrum. Since then, we have been able to build up to contribute to the economic development of India and Oman and also take advantage from it. We have 700,000 Indian nationals working in Oman. Today, we are allowed to fly to 161 flights a week to 11 destinations in India. The summer of 2016 and 2017 has seen a growth of 500 additional seats, which is enough for the next 24 months. We are flying triple daily flights to Mumbai, Hyderabad, Cochin and Delhi, and creating full connectivity in our hub, not only for the GCC countries but also to Europe, where we have started double daily to London and a new flight to Manchester. These connections can offer great opportunities to the Indian market to use our services. In winter, with our additional frequency to Mumbai, we will add around 2000 seats, which will make us have close to 28,000 seats moving between Oman and India.
Q What load factor are you seeing between India and Oman?
The load factor is quite high and the people in India like the product of Oman Air because we are offering an exceptionally good service at affordable prices. Out of India, 40 per cent of our guests are travelling to the GCC and 60 per cent are also highly attracted to our international markets, in which Europe is very popular. Our latest operations to Manchester and London, along with the connections to Frankfurt, Zurich and Munich, are liked very much.
Q Are you thinking of connecting to new destinations in India?
Unfortunately, in India, we don’t have any new destinations coming up. However, we are following closely the plans of the Indian government to open more regional airports, which we are looking as business cases. We will see if these airports are cannibalising on the existing destinations or not; if they get entitlements in addition to our existing bilateral agreement; and if there is really enough demand to open them up. Our priority for 2018-19 is to consolidate our existing destinations, increase the number of seats by having larger aircraft, and then add new destinations to our portfolio. We are adding new destinations globally, but we are doing that in partnership with other airlines, like with Lufthansa, we have a codeshare for Frankfurt and Munich.
Q Are you looking to invest in the Indian market?
We are here on a journey as well. Indian economy is very strong and the people here want to travel as tourists as well as businessmen. In fact, there is a huge rise in the percentage of businesswomen travelling on our airline from India. Although we are getting good return on our investment in India, till 2022, we want to consolidate on the existing markets, because we need to stabilise. By that time, we’d have additional aircraft, allowing us to grow further and even expand our network.
The Indian government might consider to have open skies for destinations within 5000 kilometres, which if materialises in the next two years, would automatically create a level environment. This, in addition to the government’s plans to open new airports, would allow us to open new destinations in India.
Q Could you elaborate on the expansion plans of Oman Air?
Our original plan was to reconfigure our existing 330-300 fleet, which is currently flying between London and Muscat as well as to the Far East with three classes. However, instead of that, we decided to get brand new 787-900s, with eight first class suites, in addition to our award-winning business class seats. We took this decision owing to the economic downturn, which is affecting the entire GCC market. The addition of the new fleet should be completed by 2023.
We have very clear objectives. We want to run a safe airline and remain the airline of first choice for customers, especially with our award-winning business class. We don’t want to go for commodity, but want to be a boutique airline. We want to make money and cater to the growth of our country. India is a very important player in this growth strategy. We want to contribute to the economy of Sultanate of Oman. During 2017, we could contribute close to 900 million Oman Rial, which is equivalent to around $2.5 billion. We want to bring tourists and create jobs in the tourism industry of Oman and also create business opportunities in Oman and via Oman.
Q What has been the impact of the current GCC crisis?
Let me first express our concern that the peaceful environment is being disturbed by the current actions taken by the governments in the Middle East. This is creating only losers because the Middle East is seen in the world as one entity, and if this type of instability is seen externally, it could affect the tourists’ demand to visit the entire Middle East or using it as a transit hub for an onward journey. We hope that the situation would come back to normal and that we can live in peace and prosperity and promote the Gulf region in its total entity to the rest of the world.
