Muscat International handled 11.8 million passengers in 2025 — four of every five air travelers in Oman — while Oman Air carried 5.8 million at an 82% load factor and turned EBITDA-positive for the first time in fifteen years, having just joined oneworld.
Oman Airports group closed 2025 with 15.2 million passengers and 162,216 tonnes of cargo — up 4% — and Muscat did the heavy lifting. The terminal, repeatedly voted ACI’s best Middle East airport in the 5–15 million class for service quality, kept its reputation for being the one Gulf mega-terminal where you can still hear yourself think. The Iran war of spring 2026 hit hard — Muscat’s March arrivals fell by more than a third and January–May finished 9% down — but the airport never closed, Oman Air and SalamAir even ran ground shuttles from Sharjah for stranded travelers, and by May the decline was visibly easing.
The bigger story is the flag carrier’s turnaround. Oman Air’s 5.8 million passengers came with an 82% load factor, positive EBITDA of OMR 3.2 million — the first profitable year in fifteen — and OMR 27 million of debt paid down. The airline cut transfer traffic deliberately: 64% of its guests now fly point-to-point, up 34% in a year, feeding Oman itself rather than the sixth-freedom game. Membership in oneworld since mid-2025 plugs Muscat into some 900 airports, and new routes to Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Baghdad, Taif and Singapore plus a restored double-daily Heathrow widen the map. The fleet stands at 33 Boeings, growing to 39 by 2029.
Beneath the flag carrier, SalamAir has become the region’s quiet low-cost success: 3.4 million passengers on more than 22,000 flights to 40-plus destinations in 2025, 83% on-time performance and OMR 137 million in revenue. The government completed its acquisition of the airline in March 2026, and the fleet grows to 18 aircraft in 2026 and 25 by 2028, with new points including Port Sudan, Nairobi, Kigali, Vienna and Medan.
Around both carriers sits the National Aviation Strategy 2040: more than 40 million passengers and 1 million tonnes of cargo a year, aviation contributing over 3.5% of GDP. On the ground that means the Muscat Airport Free Zone — phase one, 400,000 m², operational in 2026 — and an airport-city program that has already signed $130 million of agreements. Muscat is building its hub the Omani way: slowly, then all at once.
Muscat is the anti-Dubai of Gulf hubs: it chose profit and provenance over raw transfer volume, and 2025 proved the bet. Our read — Oman Air in business class on the 787 is now one of the best-value oneworld tickets into the Gulf, and SalamAir is the smart hop around the region. Fly into MCT before the 40-million plan makes it feel like everywhere else.
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