Oman Air business class experience- some thoughts

[capetown]

Hi y’all,
As posted here https://www.aviation24.be/forums/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=58997 a couple of months ago, I had the opportunity to find two business class tickets (CDG-MCT-BKK-MCT-BKK) for me and my wife at the incredible price of 1080 EUR p/pax.
What follows is not a flight report (currently I don’t have the time to post these), but some thoughts after our flight.

We flew CDG-MCT-BKK on Sep 17/18, and returned from BKK to CDG via MCT on October 2/3.
All sectors were flown with WY’s brand new 788’s. Contrary to what I thought, WY’s 788’s have different cabin layouts : some (or at least one) still has the “old style” business class layout (as known from their A330’s), and others have the newly designed “staggered” layout.
Seats in both configurations are comfortable (and fully reclining), although the “old style” layout has a more spacious feel (due to the absence of specific compartments or ‘separating’ panels between the seats).
As a regular QR (and to a lesser extent : EK) business class flyer, and after having read some very positive reviews of WY’s business class product, I was full of expectations.

They turned out to be too high.

Let me explain myself :

Out of the 4 sectors flown, only 1 sector offered a service which is comparable to the service usually offered in business class by QR and/or EK (I say “usually”, as there have been flights with these airlines that I found really disappointing (such as when flying one of QR’s first ever flights with its brand new A380 from BKK to DOH, where service was incredibly slow and negligent – probably due to the fact that the QR A380 has substantial more seats in business class then QR’s 777s making that the flight attendants weren’t yet familiarized with catering for almost 50 business class passengers)).
Ok, back to WY : only 1 sector offered decent service (our flight from MCT to BKK).
The other 3 sectors had either slow (for instance, when flying BKK-MCT , we were well over 2.5 hours into the flight before my starter was served – and there was no turbulence during which the service was suspended on the captain’s instructions) and/or not very friendly service: for instance, during the MCT-CDG flight, me and my wife had a male Omani flight attendant, who simply put (almost threw) the dishes on our tray, without a smile or “here you go” or “enjoy your meal” or similar. Definitely not the right man for the job (I read similar comments from other reviewers of WY’s business class product on other sites : male Omani flight attendants are not up to the job).

The food : generally ok – of a rather similar quality as the food offered in business class by EK and QR. White wine and champagne not sufficiently chilled however.

IFE : good but a quite limited choice.

What I also found striking is that safety instructions were shown on a screen, but that the crew (if I remember this correctly, on all 4 sectors) never bothered to come and check whether the pax had their seats reclined, had put their safety belt … equally, in the new business class configuration, the “separating panel” between passengers (in this case : between me and my wife) must be “up” during taxiing and take-off ; we were talking to each other with the panel lowered, and were never asked to put the panel “up” for take – off. Some of you might find this “nitty gritty”, but I care about my safety and I expect that the crew’s first priority upon departure is to check whether safety regulations are complied with.

Now , here comes the worst : the ground staff at MCT Al Seeb airport is, to put is simple, a total disgrace !

Our outbound CDG flight left one hour late (the plane had come in one hour late from MCT), but we were assured by the flight attendant that we would not miss our connecting flight to BKK (we had (as per schedule) one hour and 25 minutes to catch that flight which shouldn’t be a problem as MCT airport is really small). After having disembarked at around 8 a.m. and when going through transit, we heard the airport announcer that we should board the BKK flight immediately – and the displays where showing “last call”. Literally 50 meter from the gate (please be informed that currently MCT airport has no jet-bridges, so all boarding is done through a bus ride to the plane (this will change once the new terminal under construction has opened)), we were stopped by the staff, telling us ‘that we had missed our flight’. When protesting that the boarding process was still ongoing, we were sent away with the message “this is a computer announcement” – and were told to go the ‘transit desk’.

There, we heard new announcements calling for the last passengers to go to the gate urgently – when pointing this out to the transit desk staff, they started talking in Arabic to each other (while more or less laughing), and we were told after 5 minutes (while the announcements to board continued !) (in very difficult to understand English) that we ‘had missed our flight’ and would be transferred to a hotel (our next flight was scheduled at around 8 pm that day (WY flies double daily to MCT)). We then had to go to another desk for a transfer and hotel voucher. At that desk, we found two female WY ground staff members sitting chatting with each other in Arabic, chewing balloon sized bubble gums, and doing their best not to care about and even ignore the stranded passengers.

After we had received the necessary documents from those fine ladies, we were then escorted by another WY staff member, to (and, that was the purpose, through) customs. The customs officials (I know that WY is not to blame for this, but nevertheless, I want to share this experience) where unfriendly and, when dealing with my wife, simply intimidating. I went through customs first, but my wife, who was traveling on a perfectly valid but temporary Thai passport (valid for 1 year only, and obtained with the Thai embassy in Brussels), suddenly saw her passport disappearing , together with the customs official who had checked it. No further information was given. When the official returned after about 10 minutes, she started asking what the problem was and the reply (in terrible English) was “this passport not can go”. Obviously, my wife got upset which made the situation only worse, as the official called his supervisor who took the passport away into his office. In the meantime, all other (male) Omani customs officials seemed to have incredible fun with this and exchanged what I assume were pleasantries and jokes about my wife being upset in Arabic. Only after I (I had witnessed the whole scene just from behind the customs official’s booth) had asked the official to speak to his supervisor, the supervisor came over and summoned me and my wife to follow him to his office. There, we were thought a lesson about “I check the law . In Oman this is like this.” The guy didn’t seem to know any other English and he repeated himself 10 times. When asked whether we could finally go through customs and take a rest in the hotel, we were told that we should write a declaration apologizing on behalf of my wife that she got upset (at least, that’s what I suspect what the message was as he could barely make himself understood in English). Assessing all of our options, I decided to put some hollow phrase on a piece of paper basically saying nothing (anyway, he could not read what I wrote), upon which we were told that “the passport of your wife : no problem”, and we could FINALLY go through customs (this whole thing took us more than one hour). We were dropped at a Best Western hotel which was relatively ok – except for the fact that it was impossible to get your hands on a beer – this was a ‘dry’ hotel.

Shall I fly Oman Air again ? The answer is (unless things change dramatically) “NO”. The inflight business class product is ‘so-so’, but the main reason is that you want to avoid at all times the risk that you miss connecting flights and have to deal with the totally unprofessional idiots who call themselves the “ground staff” (and the customs officials) at MCT airport. I am aware that 1080 EUR/pax. was an excellent deal. But even when offered it a second time, I think I’d be happy to pay more and fly QR, EK, EY or even TK or AY to to BKK.

Just wanted to share this with you - thanks for reading.

Cheerz,
Capetown.

[jan_olieslagers]

Growing pains? But for spending such a lot of money, you might well expect better treatment. Allow me to suggest you write the same, perhaps reworded and more extensive, and with a lot of official documents, tickets, stamps, &c., to your local Omani embassy. At the very least your partner can expect a word of apology.

[sn26567]

Maybe the usual Arabic disdain for women? During my visit to Oman I never had any problems with the local people, but the most helpful were the many Indians living in that country.