Several weeks ago, I wrote about how Oman Air is undergoing a restructuring, and that includes making the carrier’s fleet much smaller. I wanted to post an update on this, as Oman Air is grounding a large percentage of its fleet as of today.
Oman Air cuts network, parks wide bodies
Oman Air to be ending service with all of its Airbus A330s as of today (March 30, 2024). To my knowledge, the airline hasn’t formally announced this, but the planes are no longer scheduled on any flights after today. It appears that the carrier’s last commercial A330 flight rotation is operating as WY183, from Muscat (MCT) to Moscow (SVO).
Oman Air had leased some of its A330s to Qatar Airways, and those are continuing to fly at the Doha-based airline for the foreseeable future. So you can still fly Oman Air A330s, just not on Oman Air. I’m curious if more of these A330s end up being sent to Qatar Airways, or if they find a new home elsewhere.
For context on Oman Air’s fleet, up until now the airline has had 44 passenger aircraft, including nine Boeing 787s, 10 Airbus A330s, and 25 Boeing 737s. So by parking all of its A330s, the airline is roughly cutting its wide body fleet in half.
From an aviation geek perspective, the retirement of these A330s is quite a sad development. This spells the end of Oman Air’s retro A330 first class. Gahhh, I was trying to fly it before it was too late, but there was an aircraft swap. Now I guess it’s too late!
It also represents the end of Oman Air’s ridiculously cool retro A330 business class, which was such a comfortable throwback.
With this fleet reduction, Oman Air will be cutting frequencies in many markets. On top of that, the airline will be fully cutting service to Chittagong, Colombo, Islamabad, and Lahore, and will make flights to Male, Trabzon, and Zurich, seasonal.
From a passenger experience standpoint, the retirement of the A330s is very bad news. Many routes previously operated by the A330 will instead be operated by the 737, which has a completely different passenger experience. Rather than having flat beds in business class, it just has seats that recline a bit.
For example, I see the 737 scheduled on some dates from Muscat to both Munich and Kuala Lumpur. So while you could previously fly from Munich to Kuala Lumpur in Oman Air’s great wide body fully flat business class, you could now potentially be on a narrow body jet for the entire journey. This makes Oman Air highly uncompetitive for connecting passengers.
Wait, Oman Air was actually trying to make money?
Different government owned airlines have different motives. Often they’re not directly profit driven, but rather are about providing connectivity to a country, as part of a larger economic goal. My assumption about Oman Air was always that the airline wasn’t actually intended to operate efficiently or to make money.
But after doing some searching online, apparently that’s not the case. In 2023, the airline reportedly tapped management consulting firm Oliver Wyman to help figure out why the carrier’s business model wasn’t working. Wait, seriously? Oman Air paid money to figure this out? Gosh, I really am in the wrong line of work, apparently.
On the most basic level, bless Oman Air for having such a great passenger experience, but the carrier’s planes are so inefficiently configured. For example, Oman Air’s 787-9s have 288 seats, including 30 business class seats and 258 economy seats. Other airlines have more seats than that, all while having larger business class cabins and/or a premium economy cabin. That’s no way to maximize revenue.
While Oman Air has a great soft product, the issue is that the airline can’t command a revenue premium for its product, given how competitive the region is. For that matter, Oman Air pretty consistently has the most attractive pricing in the region.
The airline simply hasn’t been efficient, and that has been a major issue. As much as I hate to say it from a passenger experience standpoint, the airline should be configuring its aircraft more efficiently, and should do a better job of controlling costs.
I’m not sure parking A330s is a great solution, either. With Oman Air shrinking even further, the airline will have a harder time filling its existing aircraft, given the reduced connectivity opportunities.
The success of Gulf carriers is largely based on having a robust network, given how small the demand levels are in many of the local markets. And I do think the 737s being scheduled on longer flights will cause many premium passengers to book away from Oman Air.
Bottom line
Oman Air is shrinking significantly at the moment, as the airline is retiring its Airbus A330s, which make up roughly half of the carrier’s wide body fleet. Not only is the airline ending service to some destinations and reducing frequencies, but we’ll also see 737s replacing wide bodies on some longer routes, which makes the Oman Air passenger experience highly uncompetitive.
I can’t help but wonder if Oman Air still plans to join oneworld, given the extent to which it’s in cost cutting mode.
What do you make of these Oman Air updates?
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