Oman Air - fly me!
I've been travelling of late, Which is just one of the reasons why newsbriefsoman has been so sorely neglected. I was in Morocco in November and in Jordan in January Follow the links for photographic evidence.
We flew to Aqaba from Gatwick where we were pleased to see Oman Air advertising on the departures screen. On our return, a hoarding facing us on the arrival ramp declared 'Muscat'. It's been very unusual to see advertising for Oman holidays, so I was taken by surprise. I did wonder what the backing photo was supposed to show, but, well, views of white villas surrounded by green trees looks nice enough.
In terms of press relations and media announcements, it seems that Oman Air has been very active over the last twelve months compared with other Omani companies. So it was with interest that I went to the Khaleej Times article this morning to read about the rebranding of the airline with its new logo.
I would have liked to have gone to a newly relaunched website for Oman Air to see the new logo and read about the company's operations, but there was no link provided in the article.
Instead, I guessed, and typed in www.omanair.com in the address bar. But what happened? It wasn't as if I got a Page Not Found message. No, the browser redirected me to a travel safety advisory notice at Smart Traveller Australia - a government service which provides information to its citizens about the dangers, or otherwise, of global destinations.
No matter how I clicked on links within the site, the address bar remained committed to www.omanair.com, even when I clicked through to the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office advice section.
A Google search did not bring up a website for Oman Air. I'm sure there must be a website somewhere, but I guess the copy on the site has not been so well written as to bring it to Google's attention.
I also looked up Smart Traveller Australia while I was about it. Here is the page to which you will be directed if you guess, like I did, www.omanair.com. I quote: "We advise you to exercise a high degree of caution in Oman because of the high threat of terrorist attack."
That's not exactly geared to encouraging tourism I would have thought. Ironic, particularly as another Australian website regularly publishes travel features about Oman.
Just to be sure, I tested this in two different Internet browsers, in case it was a browser mistake, but got exactly the same results. Has someone been hacking?
As an aside, I was extremely irritated by an advert in Flash on the Khaleej Times page, which had no Close option, and which obscured the text of the article I wanted to read. Khaleej Times please note - offering your readers the opportunity to turn off unwanted Flash adverts is a sign of a professional organisation.
We flew to Aqaba from Gatwick where we were pleased to see Oman Air advertising on the departures screen. On our return, a hoarding facing us on the arrival ramp declared 'Muscat'. It's been very unusual to see advertising for Oman holidays, so I was taken by surprise. I did wonder what the backing photo was supposed to show, but, well, views of white villas surrounded by green trees looks nice enough.
In terms of press relations and media announcements, it seems that Oman Air has been very active over the last twelve months compared with other Omani companies. So it was with interest that I went to the Khaleej Times article this morning to read about the rebranding of the airline with its new logo.
I would have liked to have gone to a newly relaunched website for Oman Air to see the new logo and read about the company's operations, but there was no link provided in the article.
Instead, I guessed, and typed in www.omanair.com in the address bar. But what happened? It wasn't as if I got a Page Not Found message. No, the browser redirected me to a travel safety advisory notice at Smart Traveller Australia - a government service which provides information to its citizens about the dangers, or otherwise, of global destinations.
No matter how I clicked on links within the site, the address bar remained committed to www.omanair.com, even when I clicked through to the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office advice section.
A Google search did not bring up a website for Oman Air. I'm sure there must be a website somewhere, but I guess the copy on the site has not been so well written as to bring it to Google's attention.
I also looked up Smart Traveller Australia while I was about it. Here is the page to which you will be directed if you guess, like I did, www.omanair.com. I quote: "We advise you to exercise a high degree of caution in Oman because of the high threat of terrorist attack."
That's not exactly geared to encouraging tourism I would have thought. Ironic, particularly as another Australian website regularly publishes travel features about Oman.
Just to be sure, I tested this in two different Internet browsers, in case it was a browser mistake, but got exactly the same results. Has someone been hacking?
As an aside, I was extremely irritated by an advert in Flash on the Khaleej Times page, which had no Close option, and which obscured the text of the article I wanted to read. Khaleej Times please note - offering your readers the opportunity to turn off unwanted Flash adverts is a sign of a professional organisation.
