Wings of alliance: How aviation shaped the Oman-UK ties

At the easternmost tip of the Arabian Peninsula lies Ras Al Hadd. Nearly a century ago, this remote headland became one of the places where Oman and Britain first met in the sky. Yet the aircraft that appeared over its shores did not begin the relationship between the two nations; they opened a new chapter in a friendship that was already centuries old.
Long before the age of aviation, Omani and British interests met on the trade routes of the Indian Ocean. Commercial contacts date back to the seventeenth century, and formal agreements followed in 1798 and 1800, later reinforced by treaties in 1891 and 1951. These agreements protected merchants and shipping and established a habit of consultation that would outlast empires.
In the late 1920s, Britain was developing an air route to India, and Oman’s long coastline was essential to it. British records in the Qatar Digital Library show that work on landing grounds at Bait Al Falaj and Suhar had begun by 1929, and that permission for a landing ground at Ras Al Hadd was sought from Oman’s Sultan in 1930. Flying boats such as the Supermarine Southampton became familiar sights along the coast. Every landing ground required the Sultan’s approval, so aviation became an expression of the relationship rather than an imposition upon it.
On June 24, 1937, Sultan Said bin Taimur signed an oil concession agreement with Petroleum Concessions Ltd, opening a new era of commercial engagement. When exploration gathered pace after the Second World War, aircraft proved indispensable, flying geologists and equipment from Bait Al Falaj to remote fields such as Fahud. The first export of Omani crude in 1967 transformed the country’s prospects.
The accession of the late Sultan Qaboos bin Said in 1970 opened a period of rapid modernisation. Seeb International Airport opened in 1973, the year Oman joined the International Civil Aviation Organization. In 1974, Oman became a co-owner of Gulf Air, and the Anglo-French Concorde visited Muscat.
Diplomatic ties deepened in parallel. Queen Elizabeth II visited Oman in 1979 and again in 2010 for the Sultanate of Oman’s fortieth National Day, which she later called a cherished memory. In December 2021, His Majesty Sultan Haitham bin Tarik was received at Windsor Castle and held talks in Downing Street on economic recovery, green investment and trade.
Today, the economic partnership is stronger than ever. According to Oman’s National Centre for Statistics and Information, the United Kingdom was the Sultanate of Oman’s largest foreign investor in 2025, with investment of some $42 billion, roughly half of all foreign direct investment in the country. In 2022, the two countries signed a Sovereign Investment Partnership focused on clean energy and technology, and negotiations opened on a free trade agreement between the United Kingdom and the Gulf Cooperation Council.
Aviation continues to carry this partnership forward. When Oman Air launched its first long-haul services in 2007, London was among its first destinations. Direct flights now carry investors, officials and families between the two capitals, along with generations of Omani students bound for British universities and British visitors eager to discover Oman.
From seventeenth-century merchants to twenty-first-century investors, the relationship has repeatedly renewed itself, by sail, by flying boat and by airliner. The landing ground at Ras Al Hadd was a modest undertaking, yet it captures something essential: two nations, separated by great distance, choosing time and again to meet, to agree and to build together.