Face-to-Face: Peter Hill, CEO, and Barry Brown, Vice President - Commercial, Oman Air
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1) Oman Air has a great deal of competition in the Gulf. How do you intend to gain ground on your well-established regional rivals?
PH - We certainly need to create our own presence in the market. We need people to wake-up to Oman Air! While many people around the world are looking for budget options, in the Gulf especially there is still a huge market for high-quality products. So you can’t short-change your customers. We want to be seen as a leader, an innovator, and above all, a high class product. Oman is becoming, slowly but surely, a high-end tourism destination, and we will serve it as a point-to-point carrier, making Oman the destination, rather than just a transit point.
BB - We also need to create a presence; our key market is still the Gulf region, so we need to innovative. We recently launched our Valentines promotion, offering 3,200 seats to any destination ex-Muscat at 50% a discount. That certainly made customers, and competitors, stand up and take notice.
2)You have described 2009 as being the ‘Year of Oman Air’. Can you elaborate a little on your plans?
PH - Our fleet will see significant expansion this year, initially via the lease of two Airbus A330-200s in May to boost capacity on our major routes to London Heathrow and Bangkok. This will be followed by our first brand new, two-class A330-200 in August. A further two three-class Airbus A330-300s will follow shortly after, enabling us to launch direct services to Paris and Frankfurt. The key point with these A330s is that everything will be state-of-the-art. We believe that if Airbus wanted to find a flagship model for its best equipped A330, they would use the Oman Air model. Passengers will be able to take advantage of not only fully flat beds and the highest grade in-flight entertainment systems, with over 500 movies, but also watch live television, and use their mobile phones in flight.
3)You will be the point-to-point, national carrier of Oman. What does Oman offer as a tourist destination?
PH - Oman is like nowhere else in the Gulf region; in Oman you can truly get to experience the full “Arabian Nights” atmosphere. People think it’s just desert, but we have spectacular mountains, and thousands of kilometres of beaches. While infrastructure is good, the country still has a traditional feel about it. And more and more international resorts are arriving, outdoing each other in terms of luxury. The Shangri-La resort, for example, is absolutely spectacular, virtually carved into the rocks overlooking the sea.
BB - Oman Air will also start offering triple-centre programmes, with smooth connections to Sri Lanka and the Maldives. These countries complement Oman well, with high-end tourism product, so we hope this will provide an additional option for tourists coming to Oman.
4)The current economic downturn is striking the aviation industry pretty hard. How is Oman Air faring?
BB - We appear to have entered the market at a good time. Last year when oil prices were at their peak, our fleet was very small, so we didn’t experience the same problems as other, larger carriers. We didn’t hedge our fuel costs, though we may consider doing so now!
PH - It’s also working in our favour this year; while we don’t wish anyone any misfortune, the fact that other airlines are scaling back makes our expansion all the more noticeable.
5) 2009 may be the year of Oman Air, but what does the future hold from 2010 onwards?
PH - Our fleet expansion plans will continue. We have a further three brand new A330 due for delivery in 2010, as well as 15 Boeing 737s to serve regional routes. We’re also in talks with both Embraer and Bombardier to purchase six regional jets, with which we will serve domestic flights. We have also ordered six of Boeing’s 787-8 Dreamliners, but we don’t expect to take delivery of them until 2015.
The Omani government is planning to develop Muscat International Airport, with the first phase adding a second runway and new passenger terminal, taking its annual passenger capacity to 12 million. By the time the second and third phases are complete (in 2030), the airport will be able to handle 35 million passengers.
BB - We’ll be continuing to command a major presence at all the major international trade shows, starting with ITB Berlin next month. This is where we’ll debut our brand new business class flat bed, so make sire you don’t miss it!
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