Could Oman Air be planning to adopt Avios?

As we wrote yesterday, Oman Air has finally joined the oneworld airline alliance, bringing with it all the upsides of alliance integration including priority benefits, cross-airline lounge access and redemptions.

Both oneworld and Oman Air are holding a variety of events to mark the airline’s accession. Rob is in Amsterdam today with Nat Pieper, CEO of oneworld and Con Korfiatis, CEO of Oman Air (pictured below) as the airline launches non-stop flights to the Netherlands.

Ahead of that, I attended a round-table with both. Oman Air Chief Commercial Officer Mike Rutter also joined and had some interesting changes to tease around Oman Air’s loyalty program, Sindbad.

“All [loyalty schemes] need a refresh over time, and from our perspective, ours is overdue. As we have gone through the rest of the business transforming various elements, the next in line to have that refresh and that upgrade is our Sindbad program.”

Oman Air will introduce a new top tier

As of today, Sindbad has two membership tiers: Sindbad Silver, which translates to oneworld Ruby, and Sindbad Gold, which is oneworld Sapphire. What it does not have is a top-tier membership tier at oneworld Emerald level, which would be the equivalant of British Airways Gold or Qatar Airways Platinum.

“We have a plan for an enhancement of the program to be rolled out in the third or fourth quarter of 2025 which will take our proposition to the level of many of those that we now work with in the oneworld environment.”

Mike promised that the changes “will be enhancement, breadth and addition, no subtraction” and confirmed that a new, top tier at oneworld Emerald level would be part of it.

He also teased something much more transformative: a new loyalty currency.

Could Oman Air adopt Avios?

He said the new currency “will have wider use than the currency within the current system.” The implication is that Oman Air will adopt a third party currency, one that is already established with a wide variety of partners, to replace the existing Sindbad miles.

“We’re obviously in the process of wanting to ensure that the currency we have in our loyalty program has much more traction than it currently has, particularly given that our guest base is 60% based outside of Oman.”

Mike wouldn’t be drawn on who they might partner with. Realistically, there are only a handful of currencies that would fit this profile and Avios is almost certainly top of the pile. We know that IAG Loyalty has been trying to broaden the Avios base, with CEO Adam Daniels teasing discussions with ‘several’ airlines and hotel groups last year.

Avios is already deeply integrated within the oneworld alliance, including with two of its biggest airlines: British Airways and Qatar Airways. Other oneworld airlines to use the currency include Finnair and Iberia, whilst non-aligned airlines include Vueling, Aer Lingus and, most recently, Loganair.

One of the challenges Oman Air faces as a relatively small carrier (it has just over 40 aircraft, the majority of which are short haul) is reach. Joining oneworld is the first step to attracting a wider audience:

“Today’s enhancement obviously brings the program to a much more global audience, which is what it’s struggled with historically in the past.”

Tapping into Avios will give Oman Air ready-made access with other airlines and other third parties, such as hotel groups.

It would be following in the footsteps of Qatar Airways, which ditched its own mileage currency (Qmiles) for Avios. Qatar Airways also struggled to attract non-local customers and saw adopting Avios as a crucial step in launching a truly global frequent flyer program. Ask anyone involved and they will say it is a big success.

If it isn’t Avios, what might it be? Fiji Airways recently adopted American Airlines’ AAdvantage as its own frequent flyer program after joining oneworld. But adopting AAdvantage would be an odd choice for an airline with no direct flights to the US and which considers London and Doha to be two of its core destinations.

Of course, as you can already redeem Avios for Oman Air flights via the BA, Finnair or Qatar Airways schemes, the benefits for you as a BA Avios member would not be transformational. Changes could include:

• being able to upgrade Oman Air flights using Avios, which you cannot do today

• being able to earn and redeem Avios on any Oman Air partners which are not currently partners of British Airways, Iberia, Qatar Airways, Finnair, Aer Lingus, Vueling or Lognair

• being able to access any additional reward availability which Oman Air may decide to hold back exclusively for its own members

We can expect changes to be rolled out in the third or fourth quarters of 2025, according to the discussion yesterday. Adopting Avios is still just speculation, albeit speculation started by Oman Air itself!