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Muscat airport in Oman has told private jet operators to avoid using the site for “additional flights”, giving priority to government and commercial flights as fresh airspace closures hit the region’s attempts to increase travel.
The Oman base has emerged as the de facto departure point for many of the repatriation flights by European governments but has also been a thriving centre for charter and private planes used by wealthy residents trying to leave the Gulf.
Chartered planes accounted for around a third of flights from the airport over the past week, according to data from Flightradar24.
“Due to the current crisis management measures at Muscat International Airport, flight movements are restricted to approved seasonal scheduled services only,” the airport authorities told charter plane operators on Friday, according to an email seen by the FT.
“This measure is necessary to manage congestion and ensure that airport capacity remains within acceptable limits.”
It added: “All airlines and operators are requested to cancel any slots falling outside the approved seasonal schedule and to refrain from submitting non-approved flight requests until further notice.
“The only additional flights that may be considered during this period are embassy-sponsored repatriation flights, subject to prior approval through the applicable diplomatic channels and on the condition that no commercial sale of seats is undertaken in connection with such operations.”
Prices for seats on private flights out of Muscat had reached more than $20,000, as wealthy Dubai residents sought to leave the region. Some were using services to take their pets in an indication they were leaving the region for a longer period of time, according to two jet operators.
An Omani official said private jets had not been banned, adding it was “just a matter of operations and scheduling due to the high volume of requests for landing permits”.
“Everyone is welcome and anybody wanting a slot can contact the foreign ministry or the civil aviation authority,” the official added.
Charter flight operators have also been using Riyadh and Dammam in Saudi Arabia.
While hundreds of flights have taken off from the region in the past week, tens of thousands of passengers remain stranded, while many more are still in Asia and unable to return to Europe. Some passengers have been choosing to return to Europe via America.
Air India said on Sunday that it would run extra flights to New York, London, Frankfurt, Paris, Amsterdam, Zurich, Colombo and Malé starting on Tuesday.
Efforts to increase air travel from the region’s major airports have been mixed.
Dubai restarted flights last week and had resumed around a quarter of its services by Thursday but was forced to close briefly on Saturday. Planes taking off from Dubai follow a narrow air corridor south, which is patrolled by UAE military jets to ensure their safety: a set-up that is likely to create a bottleneck as flights increase.
Qatar reopened its airspace over the weekend, only to close it again on Sunday. Qatar Airways ran services to cities including London and Paris on Saturday, the first from the airline’s Doha base in a week.
Virgin Atlantic, which had restarted a daily service between London and Dubai this week, was forced to send a plane back to Heathrow after airspace was closed. On Sunday it cancelled the service until March 28.
“Following airport and airspace closures in Dubai and Riyadh on Saturday March 7, we made the decision to cancel our London Heathrow, Dubai and Riyadh rotations,” Virgin Atlantic said.
“We have strict criteria that must be met for a flight to continue into a region, and our criteria for proceeding to Dubai and Riyadh were not met, resulting in the safe diversion of these flights.”
European carriers such as British Airways and Air France have been running flights out of Muscat, and say it is not yet safe enough to return to previous destinations such as Dubai or Abu Dhabi.
Kuwait’s Jazeera Airways said it would temporarily move its operations to Qaisumah Airport in neighbouring Saudi Arabia, as Kuwaiti airspace remains closed due to missile and drone threats from Iran.
Additional reporting by Philip Georgiadis
