MANAMA: Gulf Air, the national carrier of Bahrain and Oman, has been forced into another drastic round of cuts in an effort to maintain its viability.
Fierce competition from emerging Middle East airlines like Etihad and Qatar, plus the growing global strength of Emirates, appears to have persuaded Gulf Air that its survival relies on it becoming a reliable regional airline.
The carrier will stop operating huge loss-making long-haul services to Dublin, Hong Kong, Jakarta, Johannesburg, Sydney and Singapore and instead, allocate more assets to centres in the Gulf and the Middle Eastern region.
“The network will be fundamentally restructured,” said new president and chief executive Andre Dose.
The company will also reduce its fleet from 34 to 28 aircraft, taking out in the process the entire Boeing B767 fleet (nine aircraft) and phasing out the Gulf Traveller brand, and replacing nine A340s with four A321s, two 215-seat A330s and six 293-seat A330s.
The airline is suffering an operating loss of more than US$1 million a day before borrowing costs.
The fleet replacement and restructuring programme is will be completed early 2009.
