OMAN: SalamAir An Expanding Low-cost Airline From Oman

SalamAir is a low-cost airline from Oman headquartered and based at Muscat International Airport.

Salam Air is owned by the Muscat National Development and Investment Company (ASAAS) which won a government tender in January 2016.

Founded in 2014, ASAAS is a partnership between the State General Reserve Fund, Muscat Municipality, and various pension funds. Oman's Public Authority for Civil Aviation (PACA) had invited bids in 2015 for a low-cost commercial airline operator in Oman.

The airline operates three Airbus A320-200s leased from South America’s LATAM Group. Its first aircraft arrived in Muscat on November 18, 2016 to coincide with the country’s National Day.

The airline commenced flights between the Omani cities of Muscat and Salalah from 30 January 2017, SalamAir flew the Muscat–Dubai route, the airline's first international service, on 28 February 2017.

It initially served Dubai World Central but the service has switched to Dubai International Airport on October 2017. Since opening, Salam Air started operations to Jeddah, Madinah and Ta'if in KSA, and has also launched flights to Karachi, Multan, Sialkot and in Pakistan.

Qatar is planned to be the third country the airline will operate to flying Hamad International Airport.

As of March 2017, Khalid Al Yahmadi held the chairman position. As of July 2018, the CEO position is held by Mohammed Ahmed

SalamAir serves the following destinations:

- Baku, Azerbaijan, Heydar Aliyev International Airport

- Dhaka, Bangladesh, Shahjalal International Airport

- Doha, Qatar, Hamad International Airport

- Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Dubai International Airport

- Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, King Abdulaziz International Airport

- Karachi, Pakistan, Jinnah International Airport

- Kathmandu, Nepal, Tribhuvan International Airport

- Khartoum, Sudan, Khartoum International Airport

- Medina, Saudi Arabia, Prince Mohammad Bin Abdulaziz Airport

- Multan, Pakistan, Multan International Airport

- Mukhaizna, Oman, Mukhaizna Airport

- Muscat, Oman, Muscat International Airport

- Najaf, Iraq, Al Najaf International Airport

- Salalah, Oman, Salalah International Airport

- Shiraz, Iran, Shiraz International Airport

- Sialkot, Pakistan, Sialkot International Airport

- Sohar, Oman, Sohar Airport

- Tbilisi, Georgia, Tbilisi International Airport

SalamAir fleet consists of the following aircraft:

- Airbus A320-200 (3) Carrying 174 Passengers

- Airbus A320neo (1)

- Total Aircraft (4)


Tourism Observer

SAUDI ARABIA: Approximately 2 Million Visit The Holy City Of Makkah To Perform Hijjah

Approximately two million people from across the globe are visit the Holy City of Makkah, Saudi Arabia, making it the largest annual international gathering, and which, for many Muslims, is the highlight of their spiritual lives.

Ministry of Culture and Information, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia announced on August 26, 2017 that 1.497 million pilgrims have flocked to the country in preparation for the annual Islamic Hajj pilgrimage, which begun on August 30, 2017 and ends on the September 4, 2017

As one of the five pillars of Islam, the annual pilgrimage to Makkah, is mandatory for physically and financially capable Muslims to perform at least once in their lives.

The rituals involved are intended to cleanse the soul and demonstrate the equality and solidarity of all Muslims, in their submission to God.

The number of foreign pilgrims has multiplied exponentially over the years, from as few as 24,000 in 1941 to 1.325 million in 2016. Including local pilgrims that reside in Saudi Arabia, a total of 1.86 million Muslims performed the Hajj last year.

Saudi officials have prepared to receive the massive influx of pilgrims, many of whom also visit the second Holy City of Madinah.

The Hajj team deployed on the ground speaks over a dozen languages to ensure that the needs of pilgrims are met.

Mina is also known as the City of Tents as it hosts tens of thousands of air-conditioned tents as temporary accommodation for a significant portion of the pilgrims expected to take part in Hajj this year.

Mina is located between Mount Arafat and Makkah's Grand Mosque. The tents are neatly arranged in rows and grouped into areas labeled with numbers and colors according to nationality.

Every pilgrim is given a badge with an assigned number and color to help them find the way back to their tent if they get lost. To prevent fires, the tents are constructed of Teflon-coated fiberglass, and are fitted with sprinklers and fire extinguishers.

More than 17,000 highly trained personnel, supported by 3,000 advanced vehicles, are in position to guarantee pilgrims the highest level of safety.

Over 2,000 Saudi Red Crescent Authority personnel deployed in Makkah, Madinah and other holy sites to provide ambulance services to pilgrims during Hajj.


Tourism Observer

SAUDI ARABIA: Nesma Airlines Starts Flights To Northern Saudia

Saudi-Egyptian carrier Nesma Airlines has begun services from Hail, in the north of Saudi Arabia, as domestic competition in the country intensifies.

The desert kingdom’s regulator, the General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA), has overseen the issue of licenses to several new airlines, including Nesma, in the past year. For years, traffic in the country has been largely monopolized by national carrier Saudia, with around 10% going to hybrid carrier flynas.

Foreign carriers have also noticeably increased services to Saudi Arabia in an attempt to win a part of the rapidly growing air travel market in the most populous of the Gulf states.

Nesma intends to use Hail as a hub to a network of eight smaller northern Saudi cities: Turaif, Qaisumah, Arar, Rafha, Aljouf, Tabuk, Qaseem and Madinah under the local equivalent of essential air service (EAS) contracts. Nesma also plans to start services to the Saudi capital, Riyadh, the country’s main commercial center Jeddah and the oil-rich Eastern province city of Dammam.

Details of services to the last three cities will be announced in November.

Commenting on the start of Nesma’s services, GACA DG-northern airports Hamad Alkhemaish said the flights marked the start of a national project for hub airports. ATW understands flynas has been given authority to launch a similar series of EAS routes to smaller cities, based on a hub at Abha, in the far southwest of the country.

Nesma Airlines CEO Faisal Alturki said the airline would build up a fleet of six ATR 72-600 turboprops over the next three years. It also intended to acquire single examples of the Airbus A320 and A319 for services from Hail to Riyadh, Jeddah and Dammam. Two larger A321s are also planned to operate services between the latter three cities.

Partly because of the start of Nesma services, GACA is looking to expand Hail airport. A study is underway that will look at the existing terminal and expansion of the apron area to allow for more aircraft to be parked.

SAUDI ARABIA: SaudiGulf Airlines

SaudiGulf Airlines is a proposed start-up carrier planning to commence domestic services in Saudi Arabia on 01-Nov-2015 with a fleet of four Airbus A320 aircraft.

The airline was planning to launch in 1Q2015 but has encountered regulatory delays with Saudi Arabia’s General Authority of Civil Aviation.

The airline reportedly intends to initially operate three to four times daily between Dammam, Riyadh and Jeddah before expanding to Abha, Madinah, Qassim and Tabuk.

The carrier also plans to operate internationally to destinations in the Middle East and Africa.

The airline expects to take delivery of its first Bombardier CS300 aircraft in late 2015 or early 2016. SaudiGulf is owned by the Al Qahtani Group and will become the country's third domestic carrier, after Saudia and flynas.

QATAR: Qatar Airways Launches Eighth Route To Saudi Arabia

Qatar Airways has launched a new service to its eighth destination in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia with four flights a week to Abha.

Qatar Airways flight QR1212, which landed at Abha international Airport yesterday was welcomed with a traditional water salute. At airport ceremony, Engineer Tariq Al-AbdulJabbar, Assistant Vice President of Domestic Airports welcomed the first Qatar Airways flight to Abha.

"We have been steadily growing our presence and services to Saudi Arabia for the past 18 years," said Qatar Airways Group Chief Executive, Akbar Al Baker.

"As our eighth destination in the Kingdom, Abha will bring additional flexibility for passengers connecting from Asia, the Middle East, Europe and the Americas. From Abha, our passengers will now be able to travel seamlessly through our state-of-the-art Doha hub Hamad International Airport to popular cities such as London, Paris, Bangkok, Singapore, New York and Washington. At the same time this will provide passengers travelling to Saudi Arabia from international markets the convenience of another gateway."

Qatar Airways began operations to the Kingdom in 1997 with non-stop flights to Jeddah. The airline has added Riyadh, Dammam, Madinah, Gassim, Ta’if and Al Hofuf to its portfolio of destinations, all non-stop to and from Doha, with connections to most of Qatar Airways’ destinations worldwide.

Qatar Airways currently operates 84 weekly flights to seven key cities in Saudi Arabia. The addition of Abha will increase the number of Qatar Airways’ weekly flights to Saudi Arabia to 88 non-stop flights.

The city of Abha is the capital of Asir, a south-western province in the Kingdom, rapidly gaining in popularity in the region as a tourist destination due to its attractions, its mild seasonal weather and breath-taking mountains.

SAUDI ARABIA: Tourism To Generate 1.7m Jobs By 2020

Job opportunities in the tourism sector of the Kingdom are expected to reach 1.7 million by 2020, according to the Tourism Information and Research Center (MAS), the statistical division of the the Saudi Commission for Tourism and National Heritage (SCTNH).

“This total figure includes the number of direct and indirect jobs in the labor market in the tourism sector and other sectors associated and benefiting from tourism in the Kingdom,” the latest report released by MAS said.

The statistical report further said that the number of jobs in the tourism accommodation sector in 2015 will go up to 113,048 and this number is expected to increase to 129,526 jobs by 2017 due to the execution of a number of hotel mega-projects across the Kingdom especially in the two Holy Cities of Makkah and Madinah and in the capital city Riyadh.

MAS statistics further indicated that the number of direct job opportunities in the tourism sector until the end of 2014 reached over 795,000 and the number is estimated to rise to over 840,000 by the end of 2015, while the number of indirect jobs by the end of 2014 reached over 397,000, and is expected to exceed 420,000 by the end of 2015.

The total of direct and indirect jobs was 1,192,285 by the end of 2014, and this number is predicted to rise to 1,262,153 by the end of 2015.

Moreover, according to the report the tourism accommodation sector in the Kingdom is witnessing rapid growth in investments, as the number of tourism accommodation facilities (hotels, furnished apartments, hotel villas, hotel apartments, tourism inns, roadside hotels and resorts), reached 3,710 by the end of 2014, with 1,222 hotels and 2,488 furnished apartments.

Keeping with this trend, the number of hotel rooms in the Kingdom has reached 299,500 and furnished apartments 87,050.

Notably, tourism is currently the second most important economic sector in the Kingdom, where Saudization has reached 28 percent and the estimated number of people working in the tourism sector by 2025 is predicted to reach 317,352 compared to 94,249 in 2014.

According to industry experts, the tourism sector has potential to create concrete change in the national economy and emerge as the future alternative to crude oil.

QATAR: Qatar Airways Launches Doha To Abha In Saudi Arabia

Amongst other VIPs, the ceremony at Abha to mark the start of the four times weekly operation by the oneworld member from Doha was hosted by Qatar Airways SVP Aero Political & Regulatory Affairs, Ali Al-Rais, along with Engineer Tariq Al-AbdulJabbar, Assistant VP of Domestic Airports. The celebrations were followed by an exchange of gifts in the presence of local media.

Qatar Airways has launched a new service to its eighth destination in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) with four flights a week to Abha (AHB). The city of Abha is the capital of Asir, a south-western province in KSA. The inaugural flight from Doha (DOH) landed on 2 September.

“We have been steadily growing our presence and services to Saudi Arabia for the past 18 years,” said Qatar Airways Group CEO Akbar Al Baker. “As our eighth destination in the Kingdom, Abha will bring additional flexibility for passengers connecting from Asia, the Middle East, Europe and the Americas.

From Abha, our passengers will now be able to travel seamlessly through our state-of-the-art Doha hub Hamad International Airport to popular cities such as London, Paris, Bangkok, Singapore, New York and Washington. At the same time this will provide passengers travelling to Saudi Arabia from international markets the convenience of another gateway.”

Qatar Airways began operations to the KSA in 1997 with non-stop flights to Jeddah. The airline has since added Riyadh, Dammam, Madinah, Gassim, Taif and Hofuf to its portfolio of destinations and currently operates 84 weekly flights to Saudi Arabia. The new route will be operated by the airline’s 144-seat A320s with no direct competition.