Oman Air CEO takes jibe at competitors

In a recent media briefing with Malaysian media, Oman Air Chief Executive Officer Paul Gregorowitsch took to the stage to share the airline’s expansion plans in Malaysia.

Gregorowitsch became the first CEO of a major Middle Eastern airline to do so in Malaysia in over five years.

Much was shared, including the probable increase of its Kuala Lumpur–Muscat flight to three times a day.

Oman Air had been toying with the idea after seeing a 21 percent increase in passenger capacity for the route so far this year.

“If you’re looking to our forward bookings for the period of June till December 2017, we’ve seen an increase of 39%,” said Gregorowitsch during the official briefing session.

The flagship carrier of Oman also took in 47% more passengers from Kuala Lumpur last year, something which motivated it to target 10 to 10.5 million flyers this year.

But perhaps the highlight of the day came after the official briefing session, when, in an exclusive with Astro AWANI, Gregorowitsch pivoted the conversation towards his competitors.

“Big is not beautiful,” he said when asked how Oman Air plans to compete with its giant Middle Eastern peers who have transformed the traditional hierarchy of global aviation over the past few years.

“Our neighboring competitors, they took massive aircraft orders, they have big airports and big aircraft, and they are handling passengers,” he added.

There was also no love lost for the connectivity of some Middle Eastern hubs.

“If you transfer from Kuala Lumpur to Paris, Zurich or Milan, connecting time is 1 hour 35 minutes in Muscat.

“You don’t need to have a gold medal in wrestling to get through security because at the same time, ten Airbus A380s are spitting out 500 guests each.

“You do not need to be a silver medal holder in running to bridge 5 kilometers from one gate to another,” said Gregorowitsch seemingly hinting towards massive global hubs like Doha and Dubai.

Dubai has been competing hard with airports in Europe and Asia to dominate long haul routes.

Its biggest airline Emirates is famous for operating with a large fleet of Airbus A380 Super Jumbos.

“Today there’s a crisis in the Middle East, our competitors are cancelling orders for a hundred 787s because they cannot take it, and other competitors don’t know what they’re going to do with their A380s,” he adds.

Gregorowitsch said on the contrary, Oman Air plans to remain agile – gunning for a maximum fleet of 70 aircraft, comprising 25 wide bodies and 45 narrow bodies.

But it’s not just the big boys that came within his crosshairs.

“Low cost airlines have a concept that you have to pay for everything,” he said when asked how they will compete with low cost players in Malaysia.

“People think in the beginning, wow what a nice price. But at the end of the day if they have to pay for their seat reservations, their baggage, their meal on board, it becomes quite often a different ball game,” he said.

Watch Astro AWANI’s full interview with Oman Air CEO Paul Gregorowitsch on Market Talk, this 28 July at 11.30 p.m.