After a pleasant time at the Plaza Premium First in KLIA’s main concourse, it was time to make our way to the gate for our flight, WY824, to Muscat in Oman Air Business Class, on their 737-8 Max.

KLIA, at the time of the trip, was still shutting down its recently-relaunched, eternally-plagued Aerotrain service nightly, which connects the main terminal building to the satellite building. This meant boarding a slightly too warm bus, once again, for the trek across the airfield to the satellite building.

By the time we arrived, time was getting tighter to boarding cut-off, and we quickly made for our gate – only to find it completely abandoned, the flight having been apparently very recently relocated to a gate on one of the far piers of the satellite building. Given KLIA’s size, this seems incredibly sub-optimal, and left us both arriving to the right gate, despite having only walked briskly rather than ran, in a pretty terrible sweaty state.

After the pandemic, KLIA is bustling once again; and having premium passengers avail of lounges in a different concourse entirely remote to where they will actually depart from, to which they must travel by bus during the busy long-haul departure evening bank, feels so poorly thought out and executed.

Boarding was just getting underway as we arrived, and we were quickly onboard the cosy confines of our Oman Air 737 Max.

Oman Air Business Class seats on the 737-8 Max to put it bluntly, are not suitable as a serious business class proposition for the length of flight these aircraft are operating (e.g. the near 7-hour haul to Kuala Lumpur, and back). I realize they’ve probably done as good a job as they can in terms of offering a semi-competitive product while maintaining cabin density, but this is basically most airlines’ Premium Economy seat dressed up as Business Class.

Thankfully I knew this was a possibility when we booked; but we had originally been scheduled for a 787 with fully lie-flat seats (similar to my earlier review from Muscat out to KL) – so to wind up in these recliner seats for a flight of this duration and for the same price, would give me every reason to avoid booking Oman Air long-haul in future. It’s a particular madness when you consider that even value carriers like Aer Lingus and Fly Dubai have opted for proper lie-flat seating on their aircraft of a similar size.

As I say, notwithstanding the Oman Air business class seat being most others’ premium economy seat, they’ve done what they can with it; there’s a water bottle holder placed in the seatback in front; the monitors are clear and responsive; the tray table folds out twice over to offer an expansive dining surface; and the pillow and duvet waiting for us came in handy later on both during our flight, and our unexpected trip to Sharjah.

Once underway, the menu’s were quickly presented, again without a wine menu which was borrowed only (and very strictly) on an as-needed basis. I opted for the Arabic mezze to start, followed by the Grilled Fish.

When the Arabic mezze arrived – bear in mind I was in the first row – with no words uttered by way of explanation, I noticed the ‘Arabic bread’ appeared to be missing and instead a bread-sized hole was left on the plate (the bread on my sideplate was offered to all passengers, and I understandably took extra). How the crew thought I wouldn’t wonder about this, especially given the gap in the plate, I’ll never know?

Anyway, without so much as an apology, I was brusquely informed that the Arabic bread was ‘finished’, which was amazing considering I was the first person to be served.

After the meal, the crew almost fully retreated to the galley, keenly avoiding any frequent service pass-throughs or proactive offers of topups, and so with that, it was time to call it a night.

Several, short hours later, and we somewhat hurriedly began cabin preparation for landing, still in the depths of the night as you’d expect for a flight scheduled to land at 1:50 in the morning (originally, with a guaranteed misconnection transit time of 10 minutes).

As we approached, we began a series of holding patterns, before abruptly, our in-flight entertainment monitors changed to display a new destination, ‘Sharjah’ instead. And with that, we rebalanced and continued straight, slowly passing Muscat Airport to our left handside – with our captain eventually, belatedly, letting us know that we would be diverting due to an ‘incident’ at the airport. Nothing further, just a promise to get back to us with more info when it was available, and that we’d head to Sharjah, but could also end up at Dubai or Abu Dhabi.

Well – 30 minutes later, sure enough, we ended up in Sharjah; not far at all from downtown Dubai (where we’d end up once again, several hours and two flights later).

These things happen, though I would suggest we weren’t exactly kept up to date with ample information. Instead, the door was opened, we were all informed we’d wait on board and there would be no deplaning. Once again, to my great sadness, I attempted to get comfortable in my premium economy-sold-as-business class seat.

Water was eventually offered, but the delay continued, as we learned we also then needed to refuel, and wait out a delay even once the airport re-opened due to the number of other aircraft also out of position.

In the end, much as I disliked Oman Air’s 737 business class seat, I went on to spend nearly 12 hours in it – with a total ground time in Sharjah in the end of about 4 hours, plus the flight time we’d already ensured including holding and diverting time. Whatever my opinions of the seat at the start of the flight, I was well ready to say farewell to it by the time we finally closed up and took off once again for Muscat.

I will however say that I was impressed that somehow our crew didn’t time out, and that we were eventually repatriated back to Muscat – albeit I just wish I’d been diverted in the 787 Oman Air business class, rather than the 737 cabin product.

When we got back to Muscat, you’d like to imagine it was a relatively painless, well organised transfer process considering we’d now missed our onward flight – but was it? Well, no, and I’ll cover it all in my next post where we found out we would be ping-ponging back across the gulf, returning to Dubai a few hours later.

As for the Oman Air business class experience on the 737 – honestly, it’s just not competitive for a flight of this length generally, let alone alongside their regional peers. The seat is a terrible let-down for something so recently installed and for the routes this aircraft serves; made worse by the inconsistency in Oman Air’s aircraft allocation that meant booking a fully lie-flat 787, but ending up on this particular aircraft. Between that, and the relatively disinterested service on-board, this was certainly an experience sooner to be forgotten.