Gulf Air aims at fastest hub links through revised timetables

Gulf Air's new winter timetable is introduced this week and the Bahrain airline says it is boosting Bahrain's credentials as the fastest hub in the region with reduced business travel time and immediate connectivity to key destinations.

The new schedule reinforces Gulf Air’s position as the largest regional carrier with 528 weekly flights across the GCC and Middle East region.

It has 43 destinations in 28 countries and with the new timetable connectivity within two hours is now offered on almost two in three Gulf Air flights (61%), an increase of 22%, with a fifth of all flights connecting within one hour, an increase of 25% on the previous timetable.

Gulf Air has introduced new early morning departures (between 07:45hrs – 08:00hrs) from key GCC destinations including Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Muscat. These new departures are in addition to existing daily morning services from Dubai and Doha. The airline has also revised its departure times on key destinations in the Levant region with evening departures times (between 19:45hrs – 20:00hrs) from Amman, Beirut, Cairo, Damascus and Khartoum enabling business travellers to complete their business in a day and avoid costly hotel and other expenses.

Gulf Air CEO Samer Majali said: “Our new winter schedule confirms our strong position in the region. Not only do we have the biggest regional network but we have also greatly enhanced our schedule making it even more efficient and convenient for our customers, particularly those travelling on business. Our commitment to the business traveller is, “less travel time, more business time”. What’s more, all our passengers will experience even greater comfort with the arrival of 10 brand new A320s into our fleet over the coming months which will be deployed across our GCC network as well as other key Gulf Air destinations.“

Last week the airline introduced its third Iraqi destination when it added Erbil to its portfolio. It plans to introduce further Iraq services to Basra and Suleimaniah in the near future.

Gulf Air’s new winter schedule also sees the resumption of a daily service to Bangalore in India following its temporary suspension earlier this year as a result of the downturn in the Indian economy.

Mr Majali commented: “I am delighted that we have resumed our services to Bangalore. It is one of the most vibrant cities in India and a major economic centre supporting a growing information technology industry. There are strong indications that India is returning to historic levels of growth which helped us make the decision to resume services to this important hub. Bangalore is a major gateway to Southern India and the state of Karnataka in particular, from where large number of people are employed in the GCC countries. We are confident the service will be well received.”

The airline has also improved its connectivity to the Far East with more convenient arrival (06:00hrs) and departure (07:00hrs) times from Shanghai and a new morning departure time on its double daily service to Manila (10:30hrs).

Gulf Air’s full winter timetable is available to download at gulfair.com .