Bahrain’s Gulf Air plans to improve some features of its inflight choices subsequent yr because it eyes a return to the U.S. amid its seventy fifth anniversary celebrations.
On the Routes World 2024 convention in Bahrain Oct. 6, Gulf Air CEO Jeffrey Goh stated the airline’s delicate product enhancements will embrace new and upgraded meals choices, onboard facilities like free Wi-Fi and improved inflight leisure content material.
“New chinaware, new glassware, new cutlery, new delicate finishings — all these shall be coming onboard,” he stated.
The airline doesn’t plan to replace its seats and different features of the bodily product onboard its planes as a result of, as Goh put it, the interiors are “fairly fashionable and new.”
The common age of Gulf Air’s fleet of 32 Airbus A320-family narrow-bodies and eight Boeing 787 wide-bodies is lower than seven years, in response to information from aviation analytics agency Cirium.
A historic participant amongst giants
Gulf Air, based as Gulf Aviation in 1949, was the flag service for the Persian Gulf nations of Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates for many years earlier than the rise of main carriers like Emirates and Qatar Airways. It solely grew to become a solely Bahraini airline in 2007 when Oman bought its stake within the service.
Now, the historic airline is a small participant amongst giants. Its fleet of 40 planes compares to properly over 200 plane every at Emirates and Qatar Airways.
When to go: These are the perfect occasions to purchase a global flight
As such, Goh — who solely took the highest job at Gulf Air in 2023 — is concentrated on increasing the airline’s connectivity to and from Bahrain fairly than competing for connecting site visitors with its a lot bigger rivals.
Day by day E-newsletter
Reward your inbox with the TPG Day by day e-newsletter
Be a part of over 700,000 readers for breaking information, in-depth guides and unique offers from TPG’s specialists
“Your airline, a nationwide service, will all the time be your flying billboard,” he stated.
At the same time as a nationwide service, Gulf Air has formidable development plans. The airline intends to extend the variety of locations it serves by 1 / 4 — or from round 60 cities to round 75 — by the tip of the last decade, Goh stated.
These plans embrace new U.S. flights. When requested in regards to the timing, Goh stated Gulf Air is working to fulfill the Federal Aviation Administration and Transportation Safety Administration necessities needed earlier than it might start flights. He declined to touch upon the place Gulf Air might fly.
The service’s final U.S. flights to New York Metropolis’s John F. Kennedy Worldwide Airport (JFK) from Bahrain and Abu Dhabi led to 1997, in response to Cirium Diio.
Gulf Air added seven new locations to its map this yr, together with Geneva Airport (GVA), Munich Airport (MUC) and Shanghai Pudong Worldwide Airport (PVG), Cirium Diio schedule information exhibits.
Associated studying:
