Muscat Seeb Airport

I am a doctor from India who comes to Muscat Airport every month. I have been doing this for the last 8 months. At immigration I have to wait each time for more than 1 hour to give my fingerprints. This time it was for 2.5 hours which was longer than the time it took for me to travel from Delhi to Muscat. I don't understand why there can't be a segregation of people who come to Oman for the first time versus those who come here regularly. I had to wait over 2 hours for a job which took 30 seconds to complete.

When I arrived at Muscat Seeb Airport, I was directly transported to the VISA on arrival, done and dusted and quick. However, when I was at the Immigration, staff were talking amongst themselves and were not concentrating on their work. They were calling and giggling amongst each other across the hall and did not pay full attention to their work. At the immigration booth were two immigration officers and obviously they were talking, one scrutinized my passport and the other was playing with his phone. The departure experience was worst. The baggage check-in was poorly laid out and badly maintained, old scruffy and inefficient. Next, I received my passport and my checked in ticket and went off to the immigration, again the officers were talking amongst themselves, which took them 8 minutes to realise that the scanning system was out of order, so they had to take me to a special room where further checking was needed. The entire process to me 15 minutes to do so, bare in mind there were many passengers at the back. The staff at the exchange rate counter was particularly not amused of what they are doing. Floors were untidy, and nothing to eat or shop about.

I am at this airport almost every other weekend and this will be my first review with them. 1) Check in is a breeze. Especially if you're flying with Omanair, they have a specific area just for that airline with many counters open for it. The only thing is, I just absolutely am disgusted with some of the staff where they would constantly question whether I need a visa to UAE with my passport and then question me back on "are you sure?" and "really?". 2 weeks ago, the guy at the check in counter said "how do you know you don't need visa? When was the last time you were at UAE?" (if he had properly check my passport that he was holding, he would have noticed that I have at least 10 UAE stamps in my passport, one which was dated 2 weeks before that). 2) Not many shops to be honest. Not the sort of airport you want to be at for more than 3 hours. 3) Did not like the other gate for low costs airlines such as Rotana or flydubai. That place is packed and crowded and super unorganised. I have honestly paid more to fly with Omanair just to avoid boarding through that gate. 4) Arrival at the airport is ok at times. Sometimes its super crowded, sometimes it's excellent. The immigration counter could do with some more counters during the busy time cause I remember when it took over an hour just for the queue. 5) Taxi from the airport to your destination is absolutely expensive. Where I am staying at, is only 10 minutes drive, yet it costs OMR8 (and same price to where another place that is 30 minutes is). 6) When the airport is full, it really is full. The cars are unorganised and everyone looked lost. I know they are building a new airport to support the high amount of tourists coming into the country, so I really am looking forward to that.

My experience as Transit passenger at Muscat - This airport does not have the facility to connect. If you are in transit at Muscat, believe me, it will be a big struggle to remain in touch with your families or friends. The Wi-Fi free at Muscat airport is not accessible to those who do not posses local SIM or the International roaming SIM. The worst is that there is no ISD facility available even at a price. The airport is neat and clean, Duty free is nothing great to boast about. The Lounge on ground floor is good and provides Wi-Fi and standard amenities at a cost of around USD 30.

LHR-MCT-LHR 14th and return 22nd March. Not sure what to expect after some of the negative reviews posted but actually quite a pleasant experience. Flight WY 0102 landed on time and as we had booked a premium Meet & Greet were met straight off of the plane where the rep. showed us to the lounge while he sorted the visas. Whisked to immigration where there was no queue for quick formalities. It must also be said there were plenty of Visa machines where you could pay and get the required receipt for immigration. Luggage off of the carousel within 25 minutes so in the car and on the highway to hotel within 1/2 an hour. On return no queue at Oman Air so through security etc pretty quickly. No problem for my wife to nip back out for a cigarette. Airside reasonably airy with a decent amount of seats. A few shops and coffee places - we did not try so can't comment on prices. Cigarette prices incredibly cheap in Duty Free - alcohol not so. A pleasant experience - should be even better when the new Terminal is finished - but that won't be anytime soon unfortunately.

While we found Muscat to be a great city we found that the entry process at MCT really poor. First one waits in the Travelex line to buy a Tourist Visa. A long line but it moved quickly. Then you get in one of two lines each feeding to a single passport agent. If these agents moved any slower they would be going backwards. Three to five minutes to process each passenger. They spend more time chatting to their partner than processing people. We were 15th in line and it took one hour to reach the agent. After baggage claim the main arrival hall is total chaos. The new airport will open in the next 1-2 years and one can hope it will be better run.

Small but functional airport with no air bridges - so transport to and from the plane is by bus. Signage over visas could be clearer once inside the terminal (to better distinguish between the pre-arranged and visa on arrival queues) but immigration is largely quick and easy compared to most international airports once you sort out which visa queue you need to be in. My suitcase was off the carousel at baggage claim before I'd even finished my duty free shopping. While small the duty free shop at arrivals does have some unusual alcohol options (such as Jordanian arak) that make it worth a visit. There are some taxi touts at the exit but they're easily ignored. So no it's not the most modern or largest capital city airport in the world (or even the region) but given that Muscat is hardly the busiest of airports it's entirely functional. The new terminal when it opens will presumably be much more modern but I doubt it'll have quite the same charm.

I fly for business practically every week this has to be one of the worst airports I have visited. Plane to terminal is always by bus you have to purchase a visa from the travel exchange desk where there was a long line of people waiting. As most of the flights to Muscat land late or very early morning you really don't want to be standing around for too long fighting fatigue waiting for a visa. Passport control was very slow. I timed the average processing time per passenger between 2-3 minutes. So just 5 people in front of me resulted in a minimum 10 minute wait at the airport. Because it took so long to get from the plane to arrivals the bags had already been offloaded from the belt there was no reference anymore on the screens as to which belt I would find my bags so I had to check every conveyor belt. Departure from Muscat: arriving at the airport you must first go through a checkpoint and security check before you even get into the check-in hall. If you have bad luck and there are a lot of people there as there was when I was departing you could be waiting for a while just to get into the arrivals hall. There is a separate line for business passengers and frequent travellers. Once in the arrivals hall there are no amenities limited places to sit you cant even buy a bottle of water so be sure to enter this hall through the first security not earlier than 2.5 hours before the flight otherwise you are in for a long and uncomfortable wait. Check in was without problem you then go through passport control which was much faster than on arrival and then another more thorough security check. The security here is bad I had fluids with me in my hand luggage including half a bottle of water this was let through without question. Once through security you are in the departure hall. I am a star alliance gold member so I can use the PLAZA lounge. The lounge offers a bar smoking room free wifi and a good selection of hot and cold foods. There is a large duty free hall upstairs and a very small one downstairs so if you are looking to buy things be sure to use the large duty free shop. All in all I was really very disappointed with this airport the new airport is currently being built and should be finished by the end of 2014.

Small and old-fashioned without jetways and with bus service to plane stands MCT is not the most exciting or user-friendly of airports however Oman is busy building a brand-new state of the art airport across the runway from the existing facility scheduled to open in 2014. Hopefully that facility will contain bigger and better everything than the current facility which lacks a large selection of all the things usually associated with a truly representative national airport. Nonetheless the current facility is clean offers the basics and staffed by uniformly friendly people thus making it one of the more welcoming facilities I have been to.

I found Muscat Seeb airport to be very old fashioned and not very customer friendly. They still use airbridges which was very surprising. It is definitely the worst airport in the region.