A NEW GATEWAY TO THE WORLD, A NEW OMAN

MADIHA ASIF madiha@times ofoman.com

MUSCAT: The grand opening of the Muscat International Airport was a “success” and is a “great achievement”, according to Dr. Mohammed Nasser Ali Al Zaabi, Chief Executive Officer of the Public Authority for Civil Aviation.

Speaking to Times of Oman at the ceremony, Al Zaabi spoke about the efforts that went into planning such an event.

“The grand opening went better than we expected; we had rehearsed since Saturday, but today, we are really happy that everything went very well. Yes, it took us quite a while to plan for this, but tonight we raised the bar for any upcoming events.”

“We are very proud of this moment and this great achievement under the leadership of His Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Said,” Al Zaabi added.

Assigned by His Majesty the Sultan Sayyid Fahd bin Mahmoud Al Said, Deputy Prime Minister for the Council of Ministers sponsored the event, which was attended by international journalists, aviation authorities and other officials.

“Today is a great day, we officially launched the gateway to Oman, Muscat International Airport,” said Mohammed Al Hinai, CEO of Oman Aviation group.

“Today’s event is an expression to the rest of the world that we would like to welcome everyone to Oman. We have a very efficient and high tech building that can connect the people of Oman to the world and people across the world to Oman,” Al Hinai added. With regards to the future plans of the airport now that this goal has been met, Al Hinai said, “The plan is to achieve 56 million [passengers] by 2040 and 40 million by 2030. That is our target and that is what we are heading towards.”