Gulf Air informations and photos

Gulf Air (Arabic: طيران الخليج Ṭayarān al-Khalīj) is the state-owned airline and the flag carrier of the Kingdom of Bahrain. Headquartered in Muharraq, the airline operates scheduled flights to 52 destinations in 28 countries across Africa, Asia, and Europe. Its main hub is Bahrain International Airport. Gulf Air is the sponsor of the Bahrain Grand Prix and Bahrain International Airshow, where some of its fleet of aircraft sport liveries of the event. It was formerly a multinational airline owned by Bahrain, Abu Dhabi, Oman, and Qatar.

In the late 1940s, Freddie Bosworth, a British pilot and entrepreneur, began an air taxi service to Doha and Dhahran from Bahrain. Bosworth later expanded service and, on 24 March 1950, registered Gulf Aviation Company Limited as a private shareholding company. This makes its current operating company, Gulf Air, one of the oldest carriers in the Middle East. The early fleet contained seven Avro Ansons and three de Havilland DH.86B four-engine biplanes.

In October 1951, British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) became a major shareholder in Gulf Aviation, holding a 22% stake through the BOAC subsidiary company BOAC Associated Companies.

In 1973 the governments of the Emirate (now Kingdom) of Bahrain, the State of Qatar, the Emirate of Abu Dhabi and the Sultanate of Oman agreed to purchase the BOAC Associated Companies holding in Gulf Aviation. The Foundation Treaty was signed on 1 January 1974 and gave each government a 25% shareholding in Gulf Aviation, which became a holding company. The operating company was now branded as Gulf Air and became the flag carrier for the four states.

With leased Lockheed L-1011 Tristar and Boeing 737 aircraft joining the fleet, by 1976 Gulf Air had expanded its route network to include Amman, Amsterdam, Athens, Baghdad, Bombay, Bangkok, Beirut, Cairo, Colombo, Delhi, Dhaka, Hong Kong, Jeddah, Karachi, Khartoum, Larnaca, Manila, Paris, Ras al-Khaimah and Sana'a. The fleet comprised four Vickers VC10, three BAC One-Elevens, two Lockheed L-1011 Tristar 200s and five Boeing 737-200s. In 1978, the airline doubled the Tristar fleet to replace the VC10s. Meanwhile, the airline increased the Boeing 737 fleet to nine and phased out the One-Elevens.

The 1980s saw an increase in air travel and growth for Gulf Air. In 1981, Gulf Air became an IATA member, and in the following year became the first international airline to land at Riyadh. In 1985, Emirates, the startup national carrier of Dubai, began operating. During their first year of operations, Gulf Air profits fell 30%, prompting the airline to drop its privatization plans. In 1986, Gulf Air posted a loss.

In 1988, Boeing 767s joined the fleet, and the airline launched service to Frankfurt, Istanbul, Damascus, Dar es Salaam, Fujairah and Nairobi, and resumed service to Shiraz and Baghdad.

The original Gulf Air livery consisted of a white fuselage with three stripes: maroon brown, green and red with a golden falcon on the three-striped tail fin. This livery was used in the following Gulf Air airliners: Lockheed L1011-200 TriStar (1976), Boeing 737-200 (1977), Boeing 767-300ER (1988), Airbus A320-200 (1992), Airbus A340-300 (1994) and Airbus A330-200 (1999).

Gulf Air celebrated its 40th anniversary in 1990. The light-blue and peach Balenciaga-designed uniform was introduced. Services to Singapore, Sydney and Thiruvananthapuram were launched, Gulf Air thereby becoming the first Arab airline to fly to Australia. Gulf Air added services to Johannesburg and Melbourne in 1992, becoming the first Arab airline to fly directly to these cities. In 1993, it opened a flight-simulator centre in Qatar and introduced service to Casablanca, Entebbe, Jakarta, Kilimanjaro, Madras, Rome, San'a', Zanzibar and Zürich.

In May 1994, Gulf Air received its first Airbus A340-300. The carrier used this aircraft type to commence flights to the United States two months later; these operated nonstop from Bahrain, Abu Dhabi, and Doha to New York City. Houston additionally joined the network. However, in early 1997 the company announced that it would discontinue its flights to America.

A no-smoking policy was established in 1998 on flights to Singapore and Australia, which was later extended through its whole network. In 1999, Gulf Air launched three new routes in northern Pakistan: Islamabad, Lahore and Peshawar. It also took delivery of two out of six Airbus A330-200 aircraft, and introduced a new Balmain uniform. The Gulf Air website opened in January 1997.

In 2000, the airline celebrated its 50th anniversary. It took delivery of the remaining Airbus A330-200 aircraft in June, and launched service to Milan.

In May 2002, James Hogan became president and CEO of Gulf Air and instigated a restructuring and turnaround programme in response to a drastic fall in profits and increasing debt. By 1 August 2002, Qatar announced its intentions to withdraw from Gulf Air to focus on its own national airline, Qatar Airways. The state remained a member state for a six-month period after announcing the intention to withdraw.

In 2003, Gulf Air introduced a new Landor Associates-designed gold and blue livery and, in June, established Gulf Traveller, a subsidiary, all-economy, full-service airline. It also announced a sponsorship deal for the Bahrain Grand Prix through 2010, creating the Gulfair Bahrain Grand Prix, of which the first was staged in 2004. The airline also introduced daily flights to Athens and Sydney via Singapore on 23 November 2003.

In 2004, Gulf Air introduced direct flights between Dubai and London, Muscat and London, and a daily service between Abu Dhabi and Ras Al Khaimah. The airline carried a record 7.5 million passengers during that year. Gulf Air's sponsorship of the Bahrain Formula 1 Grand Prix continued, with a record race crowd and a global TV audience. The airline announced a return to profit, with the best financial performance since 1997. Despite a BD30 million (US$80 million) cost to the business through fuel price rises during the year, Gulf Air recorded a profit of BD1.5 million (US$4.0 million) in the calendar year to December 2004, on revenues up 23.8% to BD476.3 million (US$1.26 billion) (2003: BD 384.6 million / USD1,020.2 million). The results meant the airline out-performed the targets set under Project Falcon, the three-year restructuring plan approved by the Board in December 2002.

The owner states of Gulf Air at that time—the Kingdom of Bahrain, the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, and the Sultanate of Oman—confirmed their support for further expansion of the airline through a new three-year strategic plan which would include re-equipment of the aircraft fleet and recapitalization of the business through private-sector financing. Gulf Air was also placed on the IOSA registry following its successful completion of the IATA Operational Safety Audit (IOSA).

The new summer schedule commencing 28 April 2006 saw the complete withdrawal from Abu Dhabi as a hub, following the decision on 13 September 2005 by the Emirate of Abu Dhabi to withdraw from Gulf Air and establish UAE flag carrier Etihad Airways. Gulf Air changed its operations to a dual-hub basis between Bahrain and Muscat airports. The airline ran a series of advertisements in local newspapers, thanking Abu Dhabi for its contribution to Gulf Air. As the national carrier for the United Arab Emirates for over 35 years, it has a large customer base located in Abu Dhabi. Gulf Air endeavoured to show continuing support for flights to Abu Dhabi from Bahrain and Muscat, connecting to the rest of the Gulf Air network, via advertisements placed in local newspapers.

James Hogan resigned as president and chief executive officer as of 1 October 2006 (subsequently becoming CEO at rival airline Etihad). Ahmed Al Hammadi was named acting chief executive officer, until Swiss national André Dosé, the former chief executive officer of Crossair and Swiss International Air Lines, became CEO on 1 April 2007. A few days later, Dosé announced a BD310 million (US$825 million) restructuring plan. This included originating or terminating all flights in Bahrain; ceasing routes to Johannesburg, Dublin, Jakarta, Singapore, Hong Kong and Sydney; eliminating all Boeing 767s and Airbus A340-300s from the fleet; introducing the Airbus A321 in July 2007 and the Airbus A330-300 in 2009; and potentially terminating employment based on performance, and without regard for nationality. This led to some employees applying for jobs in other airlines and, in less than a month, Gulf Air lost 500 persons from its workforce, prompting the airline to rule out mass layoffs as part of its recovery plan, except for performance reasons.

On 5 May 2007, the government of Bahrain claimed full ownership of the airline following an extraordinary general meeting, as joint-owner Oman withdrew from the airline to focus on Oman Air. Gulf Air had also announced cutbacks to 25% of its workforce or roughly 1,500 jobs as part of a 2-year restructuring program to stop losses of $1 million a day. André Dosé resigned on 23 July 2007 and was replaced by Bjorn Naf, prompting the Bahraini government to call for further transparency in the airline's running, and delegating parliament's financial and economic affairs committee to investigate Gulf Air's situation. On 6 November 2007, Gulf Air started its third daily non-stop flight to London Heathrow Airport from Bahrain.

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