Tomorrow Oman Air takes off to Kozhikode, its ninth Indian destination

Starting June 5, Oman Air will launch daily services between Muscat and the south-west Indian coastal city of Kozhikode (formerly known as Calicut).

Kozhikode will be the airline's ninth Indian destination taking capacity across India to 68 weekly services. Kozhikode city is Kerala's third largest with a population of almost 500,000 people.

With a current capacity 61 flights a week spread across Mumbai, New Delhi, Kochi, Hyderabad, Trivandrum, Chennai, Lucknow, and Jaipur, Oman Air operates an extensive network of services throughout India.

The addition of Kozhikode, our 3 gateway in Kerala and ninth destination in India.

In this regard, HE Darwish bin Ismail Al Balushi, secretary-general of the Ministry of Finance and member of the board of directors of Oman Air, who is carrying out the chief executive officer's duties, said that India remains to be a very important destination country.

The Indian travel market he acknowledged is one of the fastest growing markets in the world, furthermore an important destination witnessing a blooming economic growth.

Today, India is absolutely the prime single market for Oman Air with a network of nine, and soon ten cities served non-stop Muscat.

It is enjoying tremendous economic growth, consequently aviation is just one of the key sectors benefiting from such development, and Oman Air is content to be part of this economic growth facilitating travel to and from India.

With its mounting importance in the world in terms of economic growth he added, there was an extent for higher passenger traffic between India and the Gulf.

"Oman Air was able to establish a distinctive status in the Indian travel and tourist market due to its high quality services, along with the convenient flight connections timings. These have certainly contributed in increasing the number of passengers to and from India in general, in addition to our other destinations within the airline network. The addition of Kozhikode demonstrates our long-term commitment to India and we look forward to developing our network further across India as we explore new route opportunities to give the travelling public even more choice" he further said.

HE Darwish bin Ismail Al Balushi avowed that it was very important to allow people to move from one place to another.

Every flight means a lot of joy to many people.

Kozhikode is Oman Air's 26th destination, and we hope the new service would strengthen further the existing friendly relations between Oman and India.

He concluded by saying, we are very confident that the inauguration of the new destination, will achieve our anticipated objectives based on the feasibility study undertaken by the company connoisseurs in this regard.

Corporate Communications and Media of Oman Air notified that earlier this year, The National carrier of The Sultanate Oman Air, received clearance from Indian authorities to commence operations to the two new destinations namely Calicut and Bangalore, from Muscat.

This follows signing of a memorandum of understanding between the Sultanate and India. With the two new sectors, Oman Air's destinations in India will go up to 10, they added.

Getting the new destinations and additional capacities by Oman Air aims at covering the flights that were earlier operated from the Sultanate to India by Gulf Air.

The talks, they informed resulted in getting additional capacity for Oman Air, including increasing the number of seats on some of the flights operated by the company to India from 7,550 to 11,550 seats, an additional 4,000 seats in one way.

The civil aviation authority in the Sultanate and India also agreed on liberalising cargo flights to allow more air carriers in both countries to operate unlimited number of cargo flights.

They highlighted that Kozhikode (Calicut), was the most important region of Malabar in yesteryears, also a prominent trade and commerce center.

Kozhikode District found a place in the World History with the discovery of Sea Route to India in 1498 by the Portuguese Navigator Vasco Da Gama.

Kozhikode city they said continues to be a centre of flourishing domestic and international trade.

Its contribution to all round development of the district in trade, commerce and economic development over the years is spectacular.

From the13th century, Kozhikode attained a position of pre-eminence in the trade of pepper and other spices, which made it India's emporium of international trade.

As Kozhikode offered full freedom and security, the Arab merchants preferred it to all other ports.

Basking in the idyllic setting of the serene Arabian Sea, this district with the serene beaches, lush green countryside, historic sites, all combine to make Kozhikode a popular tourist destination filled with a warm ambience to fascinate a visitor.