Gulf Air to downsize !

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pkjet
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Gulf Air to downsize !

Post by pkjet »

Gulf Air is slimming its network in a bid to return to profitability. Previously the Bahrain-based airline was the national carrier not just of Bahrain but also of the UAE, Qatar and Oman, but in recent years it has seen its owning states break away to found national rivals such as Emirates of Dubai, Qatar Airways of Qatar and Etihad of Abu Dhabi.

All these three have expanded more aggressively and stolen market share from Gulf Air, forcing the airline to live more modestly. It will scrap six long-haul destinations including Sydney, Hong Kong and Dublin, retire its B767s and replace some A340s with newer A330s. It will also acquire four narrow-bodied A320s to develop regional links.

The idea is that Gulf Air will better serve the needs of the Bahrain and Oman economies for which it is the designated national airline.

Says the airline's deputy chairman Mahmood Al Kooheji, "Our operation is losing more than 1 million US dollars a day and when you include other costs such as financing the figure would be substantially higher."

Adds the airline's new president and CEO André Dosé: "We will stop operating our heavily loss-making services to Dublin, Hong Kong, Jakarta, Johannesburg, Sydney and Singapore. Instead we will allocate more assets to better serve all important centres in the Gulf and Middle East region."
To better improve scheduling "we will introduce a 'wave structure' of inbound and outbound flights to allow us to offer shorter connection times and ensure better connectivity with our Asian and European long-haul flights."

Gulf Air has no timetable for when the six long distance routes will be dropped. All the carrier is prepared to say is that the restructuring will not be complete until early 2009.
For more information go to gulfairco.com.

http://www.businesstraveller.com/defaul ... SID=683305
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behramjee
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Post by behramjee »

SYD/SIN dropped from June 13th

HKG from July 2nd

JKT immediately

DUB/JNB from July 2nd.
PK777
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Post by PK777 »

It should focus on more it main hub now, Bahrain and Oman..
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FULLTHRUST
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Post by FULLTHRUST »

PK777 wrote:It should focus on more it main hub now, Bahrain and Oman..
why dont you say they should stop operating aircraft and start a bus service.... :lol:
pkjet
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Post by pkjet »

When you look at all the fanfare and hiblitz during the Dublin/Johannesburg launch, it just doesn't make any sense.

Both flights were timed to connect DUB/JNB via Bahrain.

Looks like forward planning isn't a feature in GF ?!

Also the Sydney flight was started to connect to Atehns via Bahrain as a large number of Greeks are without a service to Australia as Olympic halted flights way back.
You can't be all things to all people...so just be nice !
PK777
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Post by PK777 »

FULLTHRUST wrote:
PK777 wrote:It should focus on more it main hub now, Bahrain and Oman..
why dont you say they should stop operating aircraft and start a bus service.... :lol:
lol yep that would be the better.. haha
behramjee
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Post by behramjee »

Gulf Air has formulated a draft schedule which will fall in place from July 1st and last till Oct 27th 2007. The A 321s have been added for flights and will be seating 16 in J and 182 in Y...god knows from where they got this A 321 from.

There have been many positives from this new schedule and here are the main highlights :

ATH - reduced to 3 weekly A 320s

CDG - 1 weekly A 343 + 6 weekly A 332s.

IST - 4 weekly A 320s

BOM - double daily A 332s from BAH + daily A 332 from MCT...same plane acft to be used on LHR-MCT-BOM flight

BLR - daily nonstop A 320 from BAH + 4 weekly nonstop A 320 from MCT.

KHI - daily A 320s to BAH + daily A 332s to MCT

LHE - Daily weekly A 332s (3 to BAH & 4 weekly to MCT)

ISB - 5 weekly A 332s (3 to MCT and 2 to BAH)

PEW - 5 weekly A 332s (3 to MCT and 2 to BAH)

BEY - reduced to a daily A 320 nonstop from BAH

AMM - daily A 321s from BAH

DAC - daily A 343s from BAH, no more nonstop flights from MCT

KTM - daily nonstop A 332s from BAH; no more from MCT

BKK - daily nonstop terminator flights using an A 343...acft spends 7 hrs ground time in BKK

MNL - daily nonstop terminator flights using an A 343...acft spends 1 hr 30 minutes ground time in MNL

KUL - 5 weekly A 343s nonstop from BAH

CAI - daily A 343 from BAH

DMM - daily A 321 + daily A 320 from BAH

RUH - daily A 321 + daily A 320 from BAH

JED - double daily A 343s from BAH + 2 weekly A 332s to MCT

SAH - 4 weekly A 320s nonstop from BAH

KWI - 5 daily A 320s all nonstop from BAH

MHD - 3 weekly A 321s from BAH

SYZ - 3 weekly A 320s from BAH

IKA - 4 weekly A 321s from BAH

KRT - 5 weekly A 320s from BAH

DAM - daily A 320s from BAH

AMM - daily A 321 from BAH
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sadiqhassan
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Post by sadiqhassan »

Thanks for the update :D

Does GF have a lot of O/D passengers to/from Karachi? The new schedule seems a bit curious


GF 730 MCT 16:30 KHI 19:10 332 0 1234567 01:40
GF 731 KHI 21:00 MCT 21:45 332 0 1234567 01:45

But then again, MCT doesn't get nearly as many long haul flights to/from Europe as MCT does so maybe the airline is trying to funnel traffic through BAH rather than MCT?
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