There are certain permitted exceptions. Rule 4(c) provides -
Travel may originate at any point for which fares are published and must terminate at the same point, except that origin-destination surface segments are permitted as follows
(a) within the country of origin
(b) within the Middle East
(c) between the United States and Canada
(d) between HKG and China
(e) between Malaysia and SIN
(f) within Africa
(g) between Maldives & Sri Lanka/India
Presumably starting in AMM and finishing in DXB would meet that exception.
The wording here is interesting as it implies that the DXB-AMM would be a surface sector. Would this in turn count as a sector and push the OP's routing to 17 sectors? Just guessing on my part of course.
