United Airways to connect Muscat

Local private carrier United Airways (BD) will open flights to Muscat in January, targeting mainly Bangladeshi migrant workers in Oman.
The airline plans to start flying to the Arab state in the third week of the next month, it said in a statement yesterday.
“We have obtained permission from Muscat Civil Aviation Authority to operate on the route with our own Airbus-310 having 250 seats,” said Tasbirul Ahmed Choudhury, chairman and managing director of United Airways.
The nine-fleet carrier, which now operates on five international destinations, including Jeddah and Dubai, will fly on the Dhaka-Muscat route four days a week.
The airline inducted one A-310 in its fleet yesterday.
“The Gulf is the most important market for Bangladeshi airlines as one in two people who fly abroad goes to the six Gulf countries which employ more than 60 percent of the county's over five million migrant workers," Choudhury said.
United is one of the four local airlines that launched operations in 2007 to get a share of the pie of the migrant worker-dominated aviation market in Bangladesh.
"Bangladesh's air traffic grew nearly 7 percent last year, making it one of the fastest-growing aviation markets in the region,” said the United Airways chief.
The airline, a listed company, also seeks to start flights to Riyadh and Dammam.
On the last trading day Thursday, United closed 1.67 percent higher at Tk 24.30 on Dhaka Stock Exchange.