Emirates airline launches fourth weekly service to Muscat

The company will expand services to the Omani capital on Saturday

Emirates has boosted services to Oman. Courtesy Emirates

Emirates is expanding its services to Oman. The airline will introduce a fourth weekly service between Dubai and Muscat on Saturday, bringing the number of weekly flights between the two cities up to four.

EK866 will depart from Dubai at 2.15am, arriving in Muscat at 3.30am. The return flight, EK867, will depart from Muscat at 4.40am, arriving in Dubai at 5.55am.

The announcement comes as Oman prepares to reopen its borders to vaccinated visitors from Wednesday, September 1. The country this week lifted a ban on arrivals from 18 countries, which has been in place since June.

“The arriving passengers from those countries must be vaccinated with two doses and the last dose is required to be at least 14 days ahead of the estimated arrival time to Oman. All arriving passengers will be quarantined for seven days from the day of arrival,” says Oman's Supreme Committee on Covid-19.

Oman recognises vaccines produced by Pfizer-BioNTech, Oxford-AstraZeneca, Sinovac and the Russian-made Sputnik V. Visitors and residents will also have to produce a negative PCR test result and undertake another test at their point of entry.

The country ended its coronavirus restrictions on movement on August 21, as cases of the deadly virus have started to decline. Stay-home hours were reduced at the start of August to 10pm to 4am, having been set at 5pm to 4am originally. All night-time restrictions have now been be lifted and people are allowed to move freely around the country.

However, Oman's Supreme Committee on Covid-19 has also said that people who are not vaccinated will be banned from entering indoor public places such as restaurants, malls, shops and offices from Wednesday, September 1.