Oman Air CEO Peter Hill to retire

Although potential candidates have been shortlisted a successor to Hill is yet to be named. However, Hill has said if a suitable successor could not take charge before the end of September, his personal commitments in October would prevent him from postponing his retirement.

Hill said: "We have a strong management team and a couple of capable people that could take over the role for a couple of months if necessary until a suitable replacement is found.”

Hill started at Oman Air three years ago after a 50 year career in the aviation industry, including management roles at British Overseas Airways Corporation (now British Airways), Gulf Air, Emirates Airline and SriLankan Airways.

Hill told Aviation Business magazine: “Originally I planned to stay a couple of years and then retire, although I was convinced to stay on for another 12 months,” said Hill. “From the start, I knew that Oman Air had a lot of potential and that’s what attracted me to the position. I never actually applied; they came and found me, which was very flattering. At the same time, I knew this would be a challenging job. We were the last of the Gulf airlines to seriously look at changing our business model, with competition from three very successful carriers, Emirates, Etihad and Qatar Airways. We could never take them on, they are far too big and established, and so we had to carve our own niche in the market, and we did this very successfully.”

Hill said he focused on what Oman has and what it wanted to get out of the product.

“Oman Air had positioned itself as a very up-market product to really put ourselves on the map, to show what Oman has to offer.

 "The challenge now is to get this carrier into a less expensive drain on the economy. We've got to get it into a breakeven situation and one day get it into a profitable situation".