Going global

Oman Air's commercial vice president, Barry Brown, on the airline's expansion plans and international developments.

Can you provide some background about Oman Air?

Basically Oman Air was born as a result of the initial Gulf Air conglomerate. In the old days it included Emirates, Qatar, Abu Dhabi, Muscat and Bahrain. Emirates was the first to decide it wanted to be independent and so it left the Gulf Air network.

Qatar followed which just left Abu Dhabi, Oman and Bahrain. When the Dubai capital launched Etihad it left only Bahrain and Oman, so the sultanate here decided they wanted their own airline as well. Hence here we are.

We have started a big drive to recruit professional airline people from various parts of the world. Our aim is to convert from a regional airline into an international one.

What does your role within the company involve?

I'm vice president of the commercial part of the business, so my role [encompasses] virtually everything from a customer touch point. It's designing the product we offer, what sort of seats we have onboard, our in-flight entertainment, our meals service - right through to market fares.

Everything a customer experiences when they book a flight comes under my role here. I deal with customer sales, advertising. public relations, marketing and cargo handling - it's really quite a diverse role.

Has the company been badly affected by the oil prices and the current economic downturn?

All airlines have been affected by the very high oil prices, but fortunately of late, we're seeing some respite in those costs. That has yet to translate into our revenues because although the cost of a barrel of oil has dipped, the manufactured fuel for aviation gas is still high. We do not expect to see the benefits for another few months.

We have struggled with the costs. Today we do add on the fuel surcharges but we're only collecting 30% of the additional fuel costs that we have budgeted for.

What is your online presence?

We have full e-ticketing capabilities and online booking is available at www.omanair.aero. In Oman internet penetration is much lower than other parts of the world. In the UK for example our e-ticketing would represent 40% of people booking online and 60% still go through tour operators.

But in Oman only 20% of the people choose to book online. Part of my brief is to look at how we present our product online and how we advertise it. We are looking to improve the way we communicate with our customers by using our website. We do have plans to launch a revamped version of the website over the next six months, which will really bring us up to world standards.

In the past we have been a regional airline, so the focus hasn't really been on this, but we do have plans to improve as we progress into our international expansion.

What services do you currently operate onboard?

Today we only operate two classes - economy and business class and when the new aircraft comes we will introduce first class. One of our major benefits is we operate non-stop between London and Oman.

The sultanate of Oman is really improving as a tourist destination. We have to be careful though, as we don't want to become a copy of our cousins up the road in Dubai which have embarked on a glass jungle. While this has some appeal, we're looking for niche tourism such as diving adventures and four-wheel drive adventures.

Many hotels are upmarket five star establishments offering outstanding service. As an airline, we have transformed the unique service Oman offers onboard our aircraft, such as our meals service. Eventually we will also be putting in-flight entertainment onboard our new aircraft.

What are your expansion plans?

At the moment we have a fleet of 737 aircraft and two Airbus A310 which currently operate to London and Bangkok - they're our first international routes. In 2009 we [plan to] take delivery of four of our new A330 aircraft, the first of seven aircraft. The A310s we operate at the moment will be replaced by the A330s and we'll operate to London and Bangkok on a daily basis.

We're also looking at two or three more routes that we wish to operate in Europe. We have a further six Boeing 787s on order so our expansion will continue. But as Boeing are on strike at the moment, we're not expecting deliveries until 2014.

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