Flight review: MCT-KUL, 6 hours 45 min on a Salam Air A321neo
Flight#: OV445
From: Muscat (MCT)
To: Kuala Lumpur (KUL)
Flight time: 6h 45min
Aircraft: Airbus A321neo
Context
Salam Air is the low cost airline of Oman Air, it operates a rather modern Airbus neo fleet (the airline started flying as recently as 2017).
In this case, a brief stopover in Muscat offered the best value itinerary to travel from Europe to Malaysia, as well as an opportunity to try this rather young airline.
As a side note, this is possibly the longest flight to date that I’ve taken on a low-cost carrier and certainly on a narrow-body aircraft!
Pre-flight experience
I book the whole itinerary through Kiwi.com (as I’ve done often when there is a rather complex itinerary involving one or more self-connecting stopovers with low cost airlines), so I can’t talk much about the booking process. Although I did the check-in on Salam Air’s website, since it was the only leg of my itinerary that could not be checked in via Kiwi.
The process was rather unremarkable, I must say.
What I found quite interesting is Muscat airport, which is very new, spacious and now crowded at all.
Muscat Airport (MCT)
Here are some pictures of Muscat airport. It is clear that Oman is investing in positioning Muscat as an alternative long haul connection point. The airport certainly fits the bill, although some other aspects, like the availability of international ride hailing apps or lack of wifi spots in the city center make a short ride into town a bit more challenging, although definitely doable!
A remarkable aspect of the Muscat airport experience is the smell of frankincense throughout the terminal…not for nothing, frankincense it is one of the signature products of Oman!
The Cabin
Salam Air operates its Airbus fleet with a classic low-cost cabin configuration and business model.
One thing that I found interesting is this transparent wall that separates the cabin from the galley. I don’t think I had seen it anywhere else before!
in this regard, Salam Air’s A321neo is fitted with a rather dense, single-class 212-seat layout, with Recaro slim seats, and the lcc-standard 29’. The seats do recline slightly, though!
I liked the choice of light grey and green colours, which give the cabin a bright and casual vibe.
The cabin was spotlessly clean (kudos to the crew that cleaned it before the flight, because the preceding flight was considerably delayed (as was, subsequently, ours) and they had very little time to do it between the two flights!)
There are also some seats with extra-leg room, which cost extra, of course. Here in these pics you can see two example: the ones on the first row and the emergency exit seats.
The seat is fitted with a rigid compartment for the safety cards, onboard menu and some other thing reading materials on the upper part. There is also a small net on the lower part in case you wish to leave there some small personal items. I think this seat design gives you a bit more of space if you wish to stretch your legs, so it feels roomier than it really is!
Food and Amenities
There is à-la-carte service onboard. Nothing to write home about. It was an evening flight and had had plenty of time to eat well at the terminal, so didn’t order anything.
A nice surprise is the fact that the seats have USB power outlets.
There was no inflight entertainement (IFE) or wifi of any sort, not on this aircraft at least.
Btw, below you can get a glimpse of the whole cabin at some point during the flight.
Our Take
Salam Air delivers what it promises. It is a low-cost carrier, so you know what to expect, but I would place it at the upper end of the budget segment, thanks to its new aircraft, clean cabin and modern seats.
The only thing is that, with flights of +6 hours on its schedules, the experience would perhaps improve by offering some sort of IFE or connectivity.
In my case, Salam Air offered me a great value way to get to Asia and save money while briefly exploring Muscat along the way, so I would say, definitely an option to take into consideration if you this type of arrangement works for you.