The Cheap Way Into Copenhagen Now Goes Through Baghdad

Oman’s low-cost carrier SalamAir will begin flying between Muscat and Copenhagen on November 14, 2026, twice a week, with a stop in Baghdad along the way. The Danish capital becomes the airline’s ninth new destination of 2026, a pace of expansion that has quietly made a budget operator from a country of five million people into one of the more adventurous route planners in the Gulf. Copenhagen is also its first Nordic destination, extending a European push that had previously concentrated on southern and central Europe rather than Scandinavia.

The structural detail is the interesting part. SalamAir is operating the Baghdad-to-Copenhagen leg under fifth-freedom traffic rights, which means it can sell that segment on its own rather than treating it purely as a technical stop for Muscat passengers. Fifth-freedom flying is unusual and politically fiddly to arrange: it lets an airline carry paying passengers between two countries neither of which is its own. The upshot is that Baghdad gains a direct link to Scandinavia operated by an airline based in neither place.

Fares reflect the low-cost model rather than the unusual routing. One-way Lite fares start from OMR 130.99 for Muscat to Copenhagen via Baghdad, and from OMR 99.99 for the Baghdad-to-Copenhagen sector alone. Passengers can book through-tickets across both legs, which removes the self-transfer risk that usually accompanies stitching a budget itinerary together manually. Lite fares are what the name implies on a low-cost carrier: seat only, with bags, seat selection and meals priced separately, so the headline figure is a starting point rather than a total. Anyone comparing it against a legacy carrier’s connecting fare should price the extras first.

The traffic logic is more obvious than the map suggests. Denmark and Sweden host substantial Iraqi diaspora communities, and visiting-friends-and-relatives demand has historically been served by connections through Istanbul, Amman or Dubai. A twice-weekly nonstop will not absorb all of that, but it is the first time a carrier has treated Baghdad-Copenhagen as a market worth flying directly rather than a set of connecting coupons. Whether it survives depends on whether the Omani end of the routing fills too. Passengers on the through-ticket should also check transit requirements carefully, since rules on remaining aboard versus disembarking vary and are not uniform across the region.

Sources: Business Traveller, Muscat Daily