Muscat – Oman Air’s transformation journey is gathering momentum, achieving significant financial and operational improvements throughout 2024 and early 2025. The sultanate’s national carrier, which launched an ambitious transformation strategy in 2023, is now beginning to see tangible outcomes from a comprehensive overhaul.

At a joint annual press conference held on Wednesday under the patronage of H E Saeed bin Hamood al Mawali, Minister of Transport, Communications and Information Technology and Chairman of Oman Air and Oman Airports, both entities outlined key achievements and strategic priorities. The event focused on the airline’s roadmap towards sustainable growth and enhancing Oman’s status as a regional aviation hub.

In his opening remarks, H E Mawali underlined the importance of strategic cooperation between Oman Air and Oman Airports in enhancing service quality and competitiveness both regionally and globally. He emphasised that the shared vision of the two organisations reflects a national commitment to building a prosperous and sustainable aviation future.

Oman Air’s transformation strategy has centred on optimising its network and fleet, restructuring its workforce, and prioritising point-to-point traffic in support of the sultanate’s tourism and economic development objectives.

At the press conference, Con Korfiatis, CEO of Oman Air, reported a 51% year-on-year improvement in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation for 2024 and revealed that the airline recorded the highest quarterly load factor in its history in Q1 2025, a significant turnaround following two years of structural reform.

The airline sold 13 excess aircraft last year, reducing its fleet size by 29% compared to 2023 and 40% compared to pre-pandemic levels in 2019. This move aligned capacity with demand and improved asset utilisation.

“Year 2024 marked Oman Air’s first full year of transformation,” said Korfiatis. “We delivered substantial structural changes in 2023 and 2024, and the momentum is clearly building. The positive results in 2024 demonstrate that we are now firmly on the path to transformation.”

He informed that passenger numbers exceeded 5.4mn in 2024, with available seat kilometres (ASK) reaching 19.4bn. Notably, the share of point-to-point traffic rose to 40%, up from 27% in 2019, highlighting a strategic shift to attract more direct travellers to Oman.

Workforce restructuring has also been a key element of Oman Air’s transformation aimed at enhancing operational efficiency and advancing localisation efforts. Omanisation rate has risen to 79.4%, up from 74.8% in 2023.

Korfiatis highlighted the fact that the workforce rightsizing programme implemented last year is expected to result in annual savings of RO18mn for Oman Air.

Oman Air has successfully redeployed 74 Omani employees within the company and offered new positions to 87 individuals across the broader aviation sector, even as 293 employees opted for severance packages ranging from 12 to 24 months. The airline invested approximately RO15mn in these packages to ensure financial stability for affected staff.