Muscat airport expansion to open in March

A long-delayed new passenger terminal at Muscat International Airport will begin commercial operations in March, Oman’s Ministry of Transport and Communications has announced.

The terminal was originally due to open in early 2014 but has been hit by repeated delays due to illegal workers, technical difficulties and other issues.

Transport minister Dr Ahmed bin Mohammed al-Futaisi said last year that the airport would open before the end of 2017.

Read: New Muscat International Airport terminal to open by year-end

Further delays meant this deadline was not achieved, with pilots involving groups of test passengers only beginning towards the end of last year and the terminal receiving its first test flight on December 23.

Read: Muscat airport’s new terminal to receive first test flight

The ministry confirmed in a tweet that the new terminal, which has an annual capacity of 12 million passengers, would open on Tuesday, March 20.

On the same date all incoming and outgoing flights will be allocated to the terminal.

It’s been decided that the commercial operation of the New Passengers Terminal Building In #MCT_airport will be on Tuesday,20th of March 2018,therefore all the incoming & outgoing flights will be allocated to the new airport. pic.twitter.com/hm6Ff0a1R9

— النقل والاتصالات (@motc_om) January 31, 2018

Officials intend to grow Muscat airport’s capacity to 48 million passengers a year through expansion work.