Big rise in transit passenger traffic at Muscat airport

Muscat: There is a huge spike in the number of transit passengers passing through the Muscat International Airport.
The number of people transiting through the Muscat International Airport rose by around 350 per cent in July this year, according to data provided by the National Centre for Statistics and Information (NCSI).
More than 5,647 passengers transited through the Muscat International Airport in July 2017, compared with 1,708 in June and 1,262 in May.
Altogether, 19,679 passengers transited through the Muscat International Airport in the first seven months of 2017, up from 8,036 in 2016, according to NCSI.
Compared with 2016, the jump was nearly 144.9 per cent in the first seven months of 2017.
In 2016, the total number of people transiting through the Muscat International Airport stood at 27,638.
Members of the travel industry said transit passengers are those who do not alight from the plane it lands at the Muscat International Airport.
“While transfer passengers are those, who come out of their flight,” a senior Oman Airports Management Company (OAMC) official said.
An official said nearly 40 per cent of people, who use the Muscat International Airport, are transfer passengers.
“The rest of the people come to Oman,” he explained.
The latest statistics also reflected that the Muscat International Airport saw passenger traffic increase by 17.6 per cent to more than 9 million in the first eight months of this year, from 7,961,657 for the same period last year. Cargo traffic increased by 29.7 per cent during the same period.
Observers attributed this spike to a couple of reasons. “Firstly, June is one of the busy months at the airport, and secondly a lot of flights were diverted to the Muscat International Airport following the Qatar issue. So the passengers numbers went up drastically,” an observer said.
If a flight lands in Muscat, then the OAMC gains from its landing charges, take off charges and ground handling charges.
Since June, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the UAE, and Egypt announced the severing of diplomatic ties with Qatar, according to Oman’s national news agency.
The four countries have announced their plans to cut off all diplomatic relations, as well as close all land, sea and air ports with the state of Qatar, as per the news agencies of these countries.
The State of Qatar, on the other hand, has released a statement broadcast by the Qatar News Agency, expressing its deep regret and surprise at the decision of Saudi Arabia, the UAE and the Kingdom of Bahrain to close its borders and airspace and sever diplomatic relations.
Following this, a large number of flights started landing at the Muscat International Airport, some for refuelling purposes as their journey has become a long one.