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Having booked some flights with Oman Air we experienced some strange situations which we shared with the management of the airline. Unfortunately no response had been received, and only when complaining with the responsible governmental body in Oman, we got some – although meaningless – feedback.

“On behalf of my colleague, Mr B. R. (abbreviated due to data protection), am writing to you today in order to complain about the experiences made in relation with the passenger’s recent flight Salalh-Muscat on march 16, which had been booked via the platform “travel2be” under their reference V4GTK4 resp. can be found via your booking reference WY/OXFDMQ.

As much as you have our comprehension that due to the grounding of your Boeing 737-800 MAX fleet, some modification in respect of timings had to be done, we don’t understand that your company doesn’t inform proactive either directly or via the consolidators/tour operators you are working together with about such changes.

Your Director for Germany claimed that “travel2be” had been informed about such changes via queue message, nevertheless we didn’t receive any input as from their side and only got notice of this due to some communication with your call center we handled pro-actively .

I like pointing out that it is about the basics that an air carrier has to inform its passengers about all changes, meaning that it needs also being ensured that such changes reach the affected pax via the consolidators/tour operators you are working together with, which doesn’t seem being the case!

As due to changes of time table passenger B. R. was about losing his connecting with Swiss in Muscat, we tried seeking for some assistance via your call center – just reaching unwilling and uncooperative staff which even denied letting us talk to a supervisor so that finally I had to write to your Director for Germany in Frankfurt asking for help. I wonder what passengers do, those are not working in the field of aviation/tourism and therefore don’t have such contacts …

He was so kind asking the staff in Salalah being of assistance with Mr B. R’s. luggage being checked through, although at the airport again your staff didn’t care resp. ignored about this. I and also the various receptionists at our hotel tried being in touch with someone via phone but either nobody was picking up resp. you reached only people those were not in the mood for some assistance.

Finally the supervisor in Salalah was found and had comprehension for the situation which wasn’t caused by us, checking through Mr B. R.’s luggage at least until Zürich (which wasn’ts his final destination) so that he had to care about the luggage again in Zürich.

Last not least your plane was late for more than another hour (even in respect to the new scheduled departure time) leaving Salalah with more than two hours delay so that Mr B. R. almost lost his connection in Muscat (even with luggage checked through).

All this made it surprisingly unpleasant flying Oman Air, and am really wondering why no further proactive assistance had been offered by your company towards affected passengers, i. e. change to a prior flight f. ex., and whilst talking to other guests in our hotel it turned out that obviously they neither had been informed about any changes!

Another aspect concerns air safety as on our flight Muscat-Salalah surprisingly we detected that during both start and landing some passengers had not turned their mobile phones to flight modus and were making calls. As this had been quite obvious we are wondering that the flight crew didn’t intervene taking any measures in order to finish that situation nor to penalize such prohibited action.

As this harmed the total of passengers I think that this is something also the responsible aviation authorities should be aware of! Actually I am quite surprised about the low key procedures and policy of Oman Air when it comes to safety!

Furthermore I like getting you some more input about additional bad experiences with your carrier we made (with two other passengers) on our flight back Salalah-Muscat.

As due to the grounding of part of your fleet your time table had been changed, our remaining connecting time in Muscat (continuing with Turkish Airlines to Istanbul) was about getting critical (and my earlier mentioned colleague, namely Mr B. R., who flew on that service a couple of days before, almost lost his connection in Muscat due to a further delay apart from uncommunicated change of time table), your staff at check-in had been refusing checking through our luggage all the way (as we were booked on separate tickets).

Although you have our full comprehension when it comes to changes due to the mentioned situation, we don’t understand and neither accept the ignorance shown towards your passengers affected through those changes those were implemented by your company but not your passengers!

Since you are on interlining with Turkish Airlines it should’t have been any issue checking the luggage through in this particular situation. The opposite happened: when asking for a supervisor someone without uniform but in a white dishdasha popped up from the back office and was screaming on us. When asking for his name (as he wasn’t wearing a name tag – which seems to be also a violation of both national and international laws) he refused doing so and even tried frightening us not checking us in.

Then another young member of staff (I couldn’t read his name tag as it was upside down) was intermingling and offending me asking “are you drunk”? He also was refusing giving me his name. Finally police popped up but due to their quite limited English no fruitful discussion and explanation of the situation had been possible.

This is really something I haven’t experienced in more than 30 years having been to 120 plus countries worldwide and therefore having flown uncounted airlines. So, am wondering what does make Oman Air a premium carrier as it can’t be about service …”