Oman’s Salalah Khareef Season Closes With Record Passenger Growth and Stronger Air Links

Oman’s 2026 Khareef season has closed with a major increase in travel demand to Salalah, reinforcing Dhofar’s position as one of the Gulf’s most distinctive summer destinations. Oman Air carried 270,000 passengers into Salalah between mid-June and mid-September, marking a 9% increase from the comparable period in 2025. The result comes alongside a significant expansion in airline capacity and regional connectivity. Oman Air increased seat capacity to Salalah by 16% during the season and introduced additional services from key regional markets, giving travellers more options to experience Dhofar’s cooler monsoon climate.

Salalah Records A Strong 2026 Season

The latest figures provide a clear picture of the scale of this year’s Khareef travel surge.

Oman Air reported that its 270,000 passengers represented the highest level in several years. June recorded particularly strong growth, with passenger numbers up 24% compared with the same period in 2025. During the busiest part of August, the airline operated as many as 15 flights a day to Salalah, including additional services using Boeing 787-9 aircraft.

The increase is significant because Khareef is a highly seasonal tourism phenomenon. Unlike most Gulf destinations, Dhofar experiences a summer monsoon that brings cloud, drizzle, mist, cooler temperatures and green landscapes to the region.

Dhofar’s Visitor Numbers Continue To Rise

Airline performance is part of a wider tourism growth story.

Preliminary National Centre for Statistics and Information figures showed that Dhofar received 1,116,051 visitors between June 21 and August 31, 2026, an 8.6% increase over the same period in 2025.

Omani travellers accounted for 73.2% of the total, while visitors from GCC countries reached 183,861. Another 115,471 visitors came from other nationalities, showing that the season continues to attract travellers beyond Oman and the immediate Gulf region.

The distribution also highlights the importance of road travel. More than 831,000 visitors entered Dhofar through land ports during the period, while 284,667 arrived by air.

Air Connectivity Becomes A Tourism Driver

The 2026 season also demonstrated how additional aviation capacity can support seasonal tourism.

Oman Air introduced a new three-times-weekly Dubai-Salalah service in July, providing a direct regional connection throughout the year. The route added more than 4,900 seats every month and was designed to strengthen access to Dhofar beyond the traditional peak-season travel pattern.

The airline also introduced seasonal charter flights between Bahrain and Salalah, creating a direct connection from another GCC market for the first time. The service added more than 1,100 seats during the season.

These services are important for Salalah because they reduce reliance on connections through Muscat while making the destination more accessible to short-haul international visitors.

Salalah Airport Handles Heavy Traffic

The increased demand was also visible at Salalah Airport.

Between June 1 and August 31, the airport handled 686,808 arriving and departing passengers. It recorded 5,148 flight movements during the period, including 2,561 arriving flights and 355,045 arriving passengers.

Passenger traffic rose considerably as the season progressed. August alone accounted for 357,985 travellers, compared with 236,088 in July and 92,735 in June.

The figures demonstrate how sharply travel demand concentrates around Dhofar’s monsoon period.

Why Khareef Is Different From Other Gulf Tourism

Dhofar offers an experience that is difficult to replicate elsewhere in the Arabian Peninsula during summer.

The Khareef season transforms the mountains and valleys around Salalah with vegetation, mist and seasonal waterfalls. Coastal areas also benefit from cooler conditions compared with much of the Gulf, creating an alternative to the high-temperature summer travel experience found across the region.

Popular areas around Jebel Akhdar? No, the distinctive Khareef landscape belongs specifically to Dhofar, with destinations such as Wadi Darbat, Mughsail and the mountain areas around Salalah becoming important visitor attractions.

The seasonal environment has also helped Oman position Salalah as a summer escape for GCC residents who might otherwise travel to cooler destinations outside the region.

Tourism Spreads Beyond The Main Season

Oman Air is now looking beyond the traditional Khareef window.

Following the season’s performance, the airline confirmed that its Dubai-Salalah service would continue year-round. It is also examining opportunities to expand the network and resume seasonal Moscow-Salalah charter services.

That strategy could help Dhofar move from a destination dominated by a short annual tourism peak towards a more consistent year-round visitor economy.

The challenge is to create enough attractions, events and hospitality products outside the monsoon months to maintain demand when the landscape returns to its normal dry-season appearance.

Local Tourism Benefits From The Seasonal Surge

The Khareef season is also becoming increasingly important to local businesses and community projects.

Dhofar Municipality has described the 2026 season as an opportunity to promote Omani products, youth projects, cultural activities and investment while expanding the economic benefits of tourism across the governorate.

This broadens the impact of visitor growth beyond airlines and hotels. Restaurants, tour operators, transport providers, retailers and local experience businesses can all benefit from the concentrated influx of visitors.

Salalah’s Summer Tourism Story Gets Stronger

Khareef season of 2026 has also provided Salalah with yet another signal of increasing tourism attractiveness of the city. More than 270,000 Oman Air incoming passengers, a larger number of 1.1 million-plus visitors of Dhofar by the end of August, as well as an increased number of regional direct flights – all these facts point to the growing need in the destination. More importantly, it is not about the number of tourists coming to Salalah in the summer of 2026. It is about increasing construction of the necessary infrastructure for Dhofar to become a unique tourist destination in the region. With existing year-round connections with Dubai and planned further international flights, Salalah approaches the concept of a full-fledged tourist calendar, keeping the Khareef season as its main summer attraction.