Job Discussion Forums

boundforsaudi · Joined: 29 Jan 2003 Posts: 243

If you every find yourself in Salalah, avoid the travel agents. When you first try to book a flight from Salalah to Miami or wherever on, say, American Airlines, you get a message saying it can't be done, and maybe your Luddite colleague is quick to recommend her friendly travel agent. Here's the problem. The major Airlines don't recognize Salalah. Solution: You can buy your ticket online, but you have to start from Muscat and go to wherever...but you have to buy the Salalah to Muscat leg separately from Oman Air. You will save a lot of money and avoid all the idiotic, expensive itineraries planned by the incompetent and/or dishonest local travel agents.

grahamb · Joined: 30 Apr 2003 Posts: 1945

What exactly does "The major Airlines don't recognize Salalah" mean?

boundforsaudi · Joined: 29 Jan 2003 Posts: 243

Their online booking program won't let you begin a flight from Salalah.

veiledsentiments · Joined: 20 Feb 2003 Posts: 17644 Location: USA

So... you are saying that this is a problem with American airlines... or all airlines? It could be that the airport is not recognized by some travel organization like IATA or something? Or only small airlines fly in there that have no agreements with major airlines.

So it goes in these smaller locales...

VS

Duffy · Joined: 29 Oct 2005 Posts: 449 Location: Oman

I do not agree with BFS about the travel agents, I have only dealt with one in Salalah, Mezoon Travel and they were as helpful, if not more so, than any in the UK.

However BFS is correct about trying to book direct from Salalah to the rest of the world. My experience has been that is not just American airlines, but most of those world wide as well. I could count on the fingers of one hand just how many begin the journey from Salalah to a non Middle East country and even then the journey has to be "via Muscat/Dubai/Abu Dhabi/ Bahrain, etc.

As Salalah is now being "upgraded" to an international airport, perhaps things will change. I must admit that whenever I think about booking a flight outside the Middle East, I think about booking from Muscat onwards.

Duffy Smile

veiledsentiments · Joined: 20 Feb 2003 Posts: 17644 Location: USA

It is similar to flying out of small airports in the prairies of the US... every flight has the same first stop... perhaps Denver or Minneapolis... where you have to change planes, and probably airlines to get to anywhere. AND that first short leg probably costs more than the whole rest of the flight going to even Hawaii or London or Mexico City.

Economics of scale in action...

VS

grahamb · Joined: 30 Apr 2003 Posts: 1945

It's the travel agents' fault that the airlines' online booking systems won't allow you to book the entire journey from Salalah? That's hardly a logical argument, is it?

boundforsaudi · Joined: 29 Jan 2003 Posts: 243

Well, a really honest agent, when it turned out that the only itineraries available through him were crap, would suggest going online yourself and getting the full range of tickets available, instead of letting you buy an itinerary from hell. But mine didn't. And then when it turned out that he gave you bad info about the "free" bus transfer from Heathrow to Gatwick because the American Airlines rep in Muscat gave him bad info, even though it wasn't his fault he would refund his service charge when you want to cancel the ticket. But mine didn't. I tried to buy the better ticket online, but it was such a pain in the ass with the constant internet congestion and/or network admin interference I never got it done. I wound up going with the itinerary from hell and just barely made my connections and arrived in one piece. Anybody have any luck buying one-way tickets from say, Muscat to America, through say, American Airlines dot com? Maybe it's not allowed.

grahamb · Joined: 30 Apr 2003 Posts: 1945

It sounds as though you only tried one travel agent. Moral: shop around. If there's a next time, try OUA.

veiledsentiments · Joined: 20 Feb 2003 Posts: 17644 Location: USA

One thing I noticed about travel agents around the Gulf was that they tended to take whatever route popped up in front of them. This was pre-internet booking days and we had those flight books that all the airlines handed out. My employer would put in the order for the various teacher routes and I would head over to our then assigned travel agent and make them re-do the reservation.

Gee look... you can actually do this flight with only 3 plane changes and 8 hours of layovers rather than 6 plane changes and 18 hours of layovers (added to the normal long flight time, of course). Because my flights always involved 2-3 airlines, it took some digging.

The strange part was that they always seemed honestly perplexed that I found their flight choices a bit onerous. (Why wouldn't I want to spend the better part of two days in airports and on planes... with no sleep and the great food...) The amount of money involved was always the same. And these were hard working agents who were in most ways quite competent... it seemed that we had a different mindset.

VS