Oman Air to increase flight frequencies to India

Muscat: Oman Air will increase flight frequencies to India and look at new destinations as Oman has reached an agreement to increase weekly seats to 6,000 between the India-Oman corridors.
“We are flying to 11 destinations currently. We will increase the frequencies to certain destinations when the number of seats go up,” an official from Oman Air said.
“We will also consider new destinations to India which will be announced soon,” the official added.
In a notice uploaded on its official twitter account, the Public Authority for Civil Aviation (PACA) said that as per the agreement with India, the number of weekly seats were increased to 27,405 seats for both sides, compared with 21,145 seats a week earlier, an increase of 6,258 seats per week.
In addition to this, an agreement has been reached with Saudi Arabia to operate seven more weekly flights to Jeddah.
“Any number of flights can be operated to Tanzania against the current agreement that restricted the weekly operations to 14 and any number of flights can be operated to Kenya against the current agreement that restricted the weekly operations to 10,” the authority’s notice said.
Recently, Oman Air had urged the Indian government to implement an 'open skies' policy to start unlimited flights.
Oman Air has 126 weekly flights to 11 Indian cities but has a smaller fleet and limited network compared to big other carriers such as Emirates or Etihad.
Announcing the civil aviation policy June this year, the Indian government decided to allow 'open skies' with countries beyond 5,000 km.
At present, India has an open sky agreement with the U.S. and a near open sky agreement with the U.K. under which there are certain limitations on the number of flights that can be operated at the Mumbai and Delhi Airports.
For Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) or South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) countries, India has an open sky agreement with more than a dozen countries.
Meanwhile, a travel agent in Muscat, the increase the seat availability options for Indians and bring down the demand up to an extent.
“Considering the Indian population in Oman, the new move will increase the seat availability options and also can help to bring down the demand,” Joshy P, marketing manager at Fayeda Travels in Muscat, said.
There are around 800,000 Indians residing in Oman.