Bahrain Air suspends flights to Iraq, Iran and Lebanon

Bahrain Air, which has just taken delivery of a new A320, has suspended flights to Iraq, Iran and Lebanon.

Bahrain Air managing director, Ibrahim Abdulla Alhamer, said: “Starting from mid February till date, the company’s revenue has been affected by the unfortunate political events that the region has been going through lately in general and in Bahrain in particular. This low revenue is attributed to the decrease of passenger traffic due to the reluctance of business men, workforce and visitors traveling to Bahrain and the region in general, because of directives issued by some embassies to their citizens, as well as the negative and exaggerated media coverage about the recent events”.

He continued: “This recent development of events has accrued during the same time that has witnessed a drastic increase in cost which has reached to more than 35% because of the increase of aircraft fuel and insurance in some airports to the extent that the revenue from some of the destinations does not even cover the direct costs”.

“We have been forced to reschedule our flights to Damascus and Amman to the minimum during the period from mid February until 20 June 2011. We have also temporarily suspended our flights to Najaf, Baghdad, Beirut and Mashad during the same period or until the situation is stabilized in the market.

“The company will soon be announcing the summer schedule which will be filled with many flights within all our network with utilization of our new aircraft”.

He further added: “Bahrain Air will be launching a new booking system with great facilities and many advantages for customers and travel agencies, which will start on 5th April 2011. Bahrain Air has recently enhanced its sales and marketing departments with several new recruits with great expertise which will strengthen the company’s presence in the local and regional market and increase its marketing”. And he concluded by saying “After two months our loyal customers will be able to collect mileage points by joining our new special frequent flyer program where they can redeem the collected miles for free tickets, our passengers will find that they can gain instant rewards from our user friendly programme.”