After our surprisingly luxurious short-hop on Qatar Airways from Doha, we had several hours to while away in the Oman Air Business Lounge at their home airport in Muscat, Oman.
Muscat Airport becomes surprisingly quiet and a certain oasis of calm relative to its neighbours at this time of night, and we were through transfer security as a total passenger count of the two of us within moments – disrupted only by the inability of the staff to decide who had to man the x-ray monitor, before we proceeded upstairs back into the main airport concourse.
From there, the Oman Air Business Lounge, accessible to all their business class customers (all Oman Air business fares include lounge access, at time of writing) and Oneworld Sapphire and above status passengers, is just up another set of escalators and to the right. This is where you’ll also find the other Muscat airport lounge, Primeclass – which you can pay into, or use Priority Pass.
Unfortunately on arrival, we were initially ‘greeted’ by the worlds most unenthusiastic, sulky, agent. He stared at our boarding cards long enough for a lady to come along, take them and scan them instead.
The entrance leads to a meandering corridor lined with armchairs and – at least during our visit – multicoloured lamps, that exude a slightly tacky air, all backed by gold patterened walls behind. Down the meandering corridor and we eventually arrive to the first of two dining areas, where during our visit, late night snacks and eventually, the begining of breakfast was being served.
There’s many food options, and of course water and soft drinks for the taking throughout the lounge, although something slightly bemusing surely was that, while there was a buffet of options (covering Arabic and Western primarily), there were also menu cards left on the tables.
When Vannesha did try ordering something from the menu card, she was very quickly informed it was the same as what was in the buffet – only for the lady managing the buffet counter to ask what she was looking for, and then insist on getting it instead directly from the kitchen.
This seemed to be a really consistent position for Oman Air’s staff throughout all our interactions with them; some went above and beyond, and some went above and beyond to try not to have to do anything.
The highlight of the lounge surely has to be the floor-to-ceiling views from the main seating area that runs right down to the other end of the lounge. Facing this area is a large, well-stocked bar.
Personally, I just couldn’t get over the peace and quiet of this lounge, surely the most tranquil of all Middle East airline lounges at this late hour of the night – what a contrast compared to the sheer mayhem of Doha, where we’d just come from, and its lounges.
At the end of this space is a second dining area, with mostly the same options as the previous dining space, though perhaps slightly quieter during busy periods. Again, we were quickly shown the menu card and invited to ask for any help. Given the time of night, I needed only a collection of water bottles and to try to find somewhere quiet for a few hours’ sleep.
For those with longer layovers in Muscat Airport, the Oman Air Business Lounge does have nap rooms separated by full-length curtains. They aren’t proper beds; they’re loungers, and you can also get a pillow and blanket from the lounge staff in order to tuck up and keep cozy for a few hours.
Arguably the biggest drawback to these rooms is the curtains themselves; they’re electrically operated by the staff, and because people come and go from them without telling the staff, most remain fully drawn making it next to impossible to figure out if they’re actually in use or not without starting to peep around them all like a complete creep.
Thankfully we found two at the end unused, and after the staffmember went to find someone else who knew how to work the switches, we figured it out ourselves and were able to quickly make a ‘double’ nap room for a few hours’ sleep.
By the time we came to, lounge staff were hurriedly going curtained-room to curtained-room shouting ‘BANGKOK’, evidently due to depart, and made our way instead to the shower facilities, which are located in the washrooms at the far end of the lounge, near the nap rooms.
Somehow I recalled the shower rooms being slightly nicer on my previous visit back in 2019, although, like most of the lounge, they are also heavily adorned with gold and after a short wait, I was furnished with a towel set and shown to one of the suites.
Overall, the showers are perfectly pleasant, albeit a bit smaller and perhaps less luxurious than other lounges in the region; there is no toilet within the shower suite itself for example, and the room gets very stuffy, very quickly, owing to the poor ventilation. This is pure complaining, but I also recall there being Amouage-branded toiletries previously, which seem to have been economised away in the intervening years.
Before long however, it was time for us to make our way back out of the lounge and downstairs for our onward, final, flight of this journey to Kuala Lumpur – sampling Oman Air’s Business Class on their 787.
