Oman Air to double it's fleet

[TallDutch]

Oman Air plans to double its fleet to about 25 single-aisle and wide-body jets by 2011, the Oman Daily Observer reported. CEO Ziad Karim Al Haremi said the carrier would be looking at major purchases of new-generation Airbus 350 and Boeing 787 aircraft. Oman Air currently has 12 narrow-body, single-aisle planes.

http://www.ameinfo.com/125588.html

[Nonstop2AUH]

Interesting, this is largely because after many years, Oman has pulled out of Gulf Air which had been operating longhaul routes from Muscat, mainly to London. Now it seems Oman Air will be taking over this function, but Oman is not a particularly big tourism or business travel destination, not like Dubai or even Doha or Abu Dhabi, so it seems they are going to go after the Europe-South Asia connecting traffic market which is already a crowded playing field with EK, EY, QR, etc. No disrespect to Oman, which is a beautiful country, but does this region really need another growing airline chasing largely the same customer base? Can they all really make money?

[mirrodie]

Oh, Man, that is great. ;)