Bahrain’s national carrier Gulf Air, encouraged by the strong passenger growth witnessed across the airline's network this summer, has brought forward its winter schedule beginning from September 10.

The timetable comes with a range of new features offering more frequencies between Bahrain and key regions of GCC, Mena and Asian destinations and upgrading fleet to certain destinations adding more capacity, said the airline in a statement.

Gulf Air has also modified its flight timings on certain routes to avoid winter weather disruptions that may cause flight delays, it added.

Announcing the schedule, chief commercial officer Karim Makhlouf said, “Following the encouraging passenger growth we witnessed during the summer, we foresee the demand to continue through the winter. Therefore we have decided to bring forward our winter schedule that usually begins in late October by adding more frequencies and capacity on several routes to facilitate our customers with better and convenient travel options.”

Gulf Air's leadership position in the Middle East is further strengthened in this schedule with additional frequencies and more capacity while the Asian sector will also see more flights to meet the seasonal demand, he remarked.
 
A major highlight of the Bahraini airline's winter schedule is the addition of seven more flights per week to Dubai and Kuwait per week each to Dubai and Kuwait.

A new daily mid-day flight departing at 2pm from Bahrain to Dubai has been added, making a total of 63 flights per week, said the official.

Flights to Kuwait have been increased from 42 to 49 per week with the addition of a daily morning flight leaving Bahrain at 7.35am.

This new flight connects passengers arriving from London, Mumbai, Chennai, Kochi, Istanbul and Delhi within one hour to travel to Kuwait. The return flight allows convenient connections to Sanaa, Dhaka, Kathmandu, Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Beirut, Khartoum and Kabul.
 
Besides this, there will be three additional flights to Amman offering double daily with morning and evening flights, the national carrier said in its statement.
 
Following the tremendous passenger response on this route that has seen over 75 per cent seat load factor, flights to Jordan’s capital has been increased from 11 to 14 per week.

With two daily flights departing morning and evening, the schedule offers excellent flexibility and flight choice for passengers from both Bahrain and Amman, it added.

Beirut will also see its weekly flights increased from seven to 11 with the additional flights departing Bahrain at 5.50pm. The return flights from Beirut provide convenient onward connections to the GCC capitals besides Jeddah, Dammam, Bangkok, Kathmandu, Dhaka, Karachi, Manila, Addis Ababa and Khartoum via Bahrain.

To cater to the Sudanese passengers, Gulf Air has boosted its flights to capital Khartoum from six to 11 per week with one new flight departing Bahrain early morning while four flights at 11.15am.

The new flights also provide very good connectivity to Europe, the Indian Subcontinent, and Asia via Bahrain both ways, said the Gulf Air in its statement.
 
Passengers from the GCC and Saudi Arabia, from where a bulk of the travellers goes to Khartoum, particularly will be benefitted by the new additional flights as they offer flexibility and more flight choices.

'Services to Egyptian capital Cairo has been strengthened by introducing a combination of wide body A330 and larger capacity brand new A321 aircraft to accommodate more passengers,' said Makhlouf .

The winter schedule, he stated, will also see increased flights to the Asian countries.

'Flights to popular Indian subcontinent destinations Dhaka, Kathmandu, and Colombo have been increased to meet the seasonal demand. All three capital cities will see an increase of seven flights in total per week,' the official said.
 
The flights to two European destinations, Frankfurt and Istanbul, have been increased by one each for the winter season to meet the demand from leisure and Meetings, incentives, conferences, and exhibitions (MICE) travellers.

“We are encouraged by the strong support from our customers for whom we are a carrier of choice as we offer one of the youngest fleet with an average age of just 4.7 years, the best network of destinations, excellent connectivity to different market segments, consistent and high quality products, state-of-the-art in-flight entertainment including the world’s first live TV, broadband internet and mobile phone services on long haul routes,  and above all, a real value-for–money to our customers” Makhlouf added.-TradeArabia News Service