Oman Airports attends Routes Asia - Manila 2016
Oman Airports attends the route development forum for Asia, this time held in the Philippines, Manila; led by the commercial operational team Kimmo Ruotsalainen, Head of Sales and Marketing and Dagmo Ahmed, Airline Marketing Manager. The Conference opened its doors on Sunday the 6th of March and ended on Tuesday the 8th of March, focusing on One to one meetings with long haul legacy carriers and Low cost carrier airlines, in addition to networking opportunities with various airlines, airports, and tourism authorities.
The Routes Asia travel Summit had many insightful yet heated panel discussions; some of which addressed “What Asia needs right now” and how the value of aviation in the Asian region looks like. . The debates were brought together by top leading aviation experts; such as Alexander Lao, VP Commercial planning at Cebu, Andrew Cowen, CEO Hong Kong Express, Joy Caneba, CEO of Air Asia and Andrew Harrison, CEO Mactan, Cebu Airport. Additionally, the summit had prepared for travel related presentations, highlighting how customers engage with digital/social travel websites benefiting the aviation industry in a wider aspect.
The commercial operation team scheduled significant face to face meetings with possible targeted airline network managers, discussing potential possibilities in adding new frequencies or implementing new routes to Oman Airports, including Muscat, Salalah, Sohar and Duqm airports. According to Kimmo Ruotsalainen, Head of Sales and Marketing, meetings consisted of existing clients and prospects in the Asian region such as (, would you like to mention names?). Oman Airports’ key target markets are the Middle Eastern, Gulf, and South Asian markets, as well as further connecting African and Far East in the future.
The Airline Marketing team’s focus here at Routes Asia is to enhance the relationships with existing airlines, and to develop relations with Asian carriers for new potential opportunities. The long term goal is to connect Africa and Asia (specifically China) as well as Asia and Europe. The number of passengers at Muscat International Airport exceeded 10 million passengers (+18%) and Salalah International Airport broke its record to over 1, 0 million passengers (+22%) to the newly opened, state of the art airport, resulting an increase in both domestic and international travel.
The flight movements increased double digits i.e. Muscat International Airport by 15% exceeding 95 000 movements and Salalah International Airport by 21% reaching nearly 9 000 flight movements. General Manager Commercial Operations Oman Airports, Sheikh Samer Al Nabhani stated that Oman airports has witnessed rapid growth over the past years doubling the passenger’s numbers only in the past 5years. This growth was attributed to different passenger mix including business, leisure and tourist travellers from various destination.
Oman is looking forward to building direct routes with Asian carriers and partner with Oman Air to enhance the Muscat hub connectivity. Oman Airports aims to have a couple of new airlines to start operating to MCT during this year and more is planned to commence in 2017. Both Oman Airports and Oman Air have a close relationship and are working together to strengthen the transfer traffic via Muscat hub.
Routes Asia Manila opened doors to develop, drive, and enhance new networking opportunities, making it accessible in reaching the target goal. The Airline Marketing team will also be attending Routes Europe in Poland this year as well as World Routes in China, eager to create more opportunities in route development.