Muscat – As per the statistics issued by the National Center for Statistics and Information, the Airport recorded 34,556 flights until the end of July of 2022, transporting 4,251,173 passengers, compared to 16,084 flights and 1,647,724 passengers in 2021.

Muscat International Airport has achieved rapid success and great leaps in the number of passengers and air traffic in the years that followed the transfer of operations to its new passenger building, which was built according to the highest international standards. Compared to the number of passengers and air traffic in the years prior to its opening in 2018, the number of passengers at Oman’s airports approached 20 million at the end of 2019.

Statistics indicated that the number of arrivals through airports in the Sultanate of Oman recorded a remarkable increase of 187 percent, as the total number of incoming, outgoing and transit passengers at Muscat, Salalah, Sohar and Duqm airports reached 4,907,599 passengers until the end of July 2022; the number of departures through airports increased by 127 until the end of July, percent compared to the same period of the previous year.

Several factors are responsible for the increase in the number of passengers in that short period – the most important of which is the acceleration of economic, tourism and commercial growth in the Sultanate of Oman during that period, in addition to the opening of new facilities for Muscat International Airport and Salalah Airport. During this period, it has also been awarded the best airport operator in the world in 2019 at the World Travel Awards 2019, and Muscat International Airport, in the same year, received the award for the most improved airport in customer service experience in the East Middle East, from the Airports Council International, reaching the 14th level in the world as the best airport in the world within the ACI program. At the beginning of 2020, the number of airlines operating at Muscat International Airport reached 32

One of the factors for this growth is the efforts of the national carrier ‘Oman Air’ and the budget airline ‘SalamAir’ to make Muscat International Airport a hub for transit flights linking the East and the West. The growth rate doubled in a short period as a result, and put the airport at the top of the list of many regional and international awards in the aviation, tourism and travel sectors, especially since the airport has been configured to accommodate more than 56 million passengers, to accommodate future travel movement to and from the Sultanate of Oman.