Bahrain Air is growing from strength to strength

Mr. Ibrahim AlHamer, The Managing Director of the Company said "Bahrain Air is negotiating with 2 aircraft manufacturers to purchase 6 brand new aircraft to be added to their existing fleet of modern aircraft, which will enable the company to add more services and expand its network to many more destinations in and outside the region.

Mr. AlHamer added "The cost of the six aircraft is estimated to be around $270m, which will be financed through the establishment of a fund by the shareholders of Bahrain Air tailored to meet the operating needs of the company for modern aircraft from now until 2016".

He said "the last bidder submitted his offer few days ago and now we are in the process of assessing the offers received". He said "if everything goes according to the plan we should be making the final selection by June 2008".

Asked about the structure of the fund for financing the deal, Mr AlHamer confirmed that the shareholders of Bahrain Air are in the process of establishing a fund that will primarily pay for the security deposits of the aircraft, and the remaining balance, which will be due after sometimes, will be borrowed from the International banking system. He said "for this purpose, we are currently talking to few banks who showed interest to come in as financiers or partners".

Mr. Ibrahim AlHamer is enthused by the market response and feels the current economic buoyancy of the region augurs well for the airline that prompted it to start operations to Alexandria 5 times a week since March 31, 2008, furthermore on 26th May 2008, 3 weekly flights will commence to Kochi in south India and will be increased to daily flights in October 2008.

Moreover, 2 new destinations will be inaugurated in June and October 2008, 2 weekly flights to Aleppo and daily flights to Kuwait respectively. Moreover, the company plans to launch 2 weekly flights to Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, in October 2008 as well.

Mr. Mohamed Saleh Fakhri, Director Commercial Operations, is positive at the response the airline has received in Bahrain and the destination countries it flies to.

He said "We launched the airline during a lean travel season and are experiencing an increase of 20% in the capacity in the second month itself. Recently we reached a 50% capacity in certain sectors and are positive that will have optimum capacity by the time the travel season is on".