Muscat Airport opening today, flight operations as usual

Muscat: As part of the 48th Oman National Day celebrations, the official grand opening of the Muscat International Airport will be held this evening.

According to official sources, preparations are underway for the grand ceremony, including the presence of a large number of foreign media delegation.

Oman Airports, meanwhile, confirmed that the airport will continue to receive all flights and service passengers as per the schedule.

"A great preparations for a unique and distinguished ceremony in these glorious days, to celebrate the official inauguration of the largest projects of the Renaissance. The International Airport has been decorated with paintings that combine originality and modernity between a glorious past, a glorious present and a promising future under a wise leadership that has charted a map of friendship with all people. Oman remains a gateway to the world," said Dr Mohammed bin Nasser al Zaabi, CEO, Public Authority for Civil Aviation (PACA).

It may be noted that the new airport passenger terminal building was thrown open for the outbound passengers on Monday at 4pm. The commercial flight to land at the new airport was Oman Air’s WY462 flight from Najaf around 5.30 pm.

The last flight from the old airport departed at around 3.30 pm the same day to Zurich.

A top official of Oman Airports told the Observer recently that Muscat Airport is expected to handle 16 million passengers in 2018 and the aim is to be among the 20 best in the world.

Meanwhile, the total number of passengers at the Muscat International Airport grew by 9.8 per cent to 11,419,791 million in the first nine months of 2018, over the same period of last year.

In addition, the total number of flights at the Muscat International Airport rose 5.4 per cent to 89,045 flights during January-September period of 2018, from 84,454 flights for the same period of last year, according to the monthly statistics released by the National Centre of Statistics and Information (NCSI).

The number of international flights at the Muscat International Airport increased by 6.9 per cent to 80,246 flights during January-September period of 2018, up from 75,076 flights for the same period of previous year.

Besides, the total number of international passengers at the Muscat International Airport during January-September period of this year was 10,510,374 million passengers, which included an arrival of 5,233,907 million passengers, departure of 5,260719 million and transit passengers to the extent of 15,748.