Muscat Airport passenger count tops 50% of pre-pandemic level

Muscat: The number of passengers passing through Muscat International Airport in June exceeded half the number of passengers in the pre-pandemic days.

Some 685,446 passengers departed, arrived or transited on flights to Muscat International Airport in June 2022, compared to 1,341,160 passengers in January 2020.

A total of 9,284 flights took off or landed at the airport in January 2020 compared to 5,322 flights in June 2022.

However, the total number of international (inbound and outbound) flights at the airports of the Sultanate of Oman (Muscat, Salalah and Sohar) by the end of June 2022 surged by 131.2 percent to reach 26,382 flights compared to the corresponding period in 2021, according to the latest data issued by the National Centre for Statistics and Information (NCSI).

The total number of passengers travelling through Oman’s airports increased considerably by 161 percent. Inbound, outbound and transit passengers at the airports of Muscat, Salalah, Sohar and Duqm reached 3,888,323 passengers by the end of June 2022. The number of outbound passengers also rose by 114 percent compared to the same period in 2021.

Breaking down the figures, the number of international and domestic flights went up by 104.8 percent at 27,880 flights (carrying 3,382,855 passengers) at Muscat International Airport by the end of June 2022 compared to 13,612 flights (carrying 1,416,975 passengers) during the same period in 2021.

Salalah Airport recorded an increase in the number of flights by 78.8 percent to reach 3,483 flights by the end of June 2022. International flights surged by 184.8 percent, while domestic flights increased by 36 percent to reach 1,888 flights compared to 1,388 flights during the same period in 2021.

The number of passengers in domestic (inbound and outbound) flights at Salalah Airport increased by 57.3 percent by the end of June 2022 compared to the corresponding period in 2021.

The number of international flights (inbound and outbound) at Sohar Airport reached 356 flights by the end of June 2022 and the number of passengers in those flights reached 32,071.

Duqm Airport recorded a rise by 6.4 percent in domestic flights (outbound and inbound) to reach 334 by the end of June 2022 compared to 314 flights during the same period in 2021. The number of passengers also went up by 42.4 percent from 22,555 by the end of June 2021 to 32,114 passengers by the end of June 2022.

Indian nationals topped the total number of passengers at Muscat International Airport to stand at 139,441 passengers by the end of June 2022, followed by Bangladeshi passengers (46,734). Meanwhile, the number of Pakistani passengers stood at 35,336 by the end of June 2022.

With ONA inputs