Gulf Air's new winter schedule offers a big network and a fast hub in the Middle East

Despite expanding its reach to 43 destinations in 28 countries, connectivity within two hours is now offered on almost two in three Gulf Air flights (61%), an increase of 22%, with a fifth of all flights connecting within one hour, an increase of 25% on the previous timetable.

Business time, not travel time

To meet the needs of its regional corporate customers, Gulf Air has introduced new early morning departures (between 07:45hrs - 08:00hrs) from key GCC destinations including Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Muscat.

These new departures are in addition to existing daily morning services from Dubai and Doha. The airline has also revised its departure times on key destinations in the Levant region with more convenient evening departures times (between 19:45hrs - 20:00hrs) from Amman, Beirut, Cairo, Damascus and Khartoum enabling business travellers to complete their business in a day and avoid costly hotel and other expenses.

Gulf Air Chief Executive Officer Samer Majali said: "Our new winter schedule confirms our strong position in the region. Not only do we have the biggest regional network but we have also greatly enhanced our schedule making it even more efficient and convenient for our customers, particularly those travelling on business. Our commitment to the business traveller is, "less travel time, more business time". What's more, all our passengers will experience even greater comfort with the arrival of 10 brand new A320s into our fleet over the coming months which will be deployed across our GCC network as well as other key Gulf Air destinations."

Iraq Expansion

Erbil, in Northern Iraq, is the newest destination to be added to Gulf Air's network with a three times weekly service introduced as part of the airline's new schedule. Gulf Air now operates to three cities in Iraq following the successful launch of Baghdad and Najaf in September. Services to Najaf have also been increased as of today to a daily operation.

Mr. Majali said, "The start of our third service to Iraq and increase to a daily service to Najaf is yet another objective successfully achieved as we continue to strive to be the market leader operating into Iraq."

Gulf Air plans to introduce further Iraq service to Basra and Suleimaniah in the near future.

Improved Indian Sub Continent (ISC) and Far East Connectivity

Gulf Air's new winter schedule also sees the resumption of a daily service to Bangalore in India following its temporary suspension earlier this year as a result of the downturn in the Indian economy.

Mr Majali commented:

"I am delighted that we have resumed our services to Bangalore. It is one of the most vibrant cities in India and a major economic centre supporting a growing information technology industry, dubbing it the 'Silicon Valley of India'. Despite it being hit hard by the economic crash, there are strong indications that India is returning to historic levels of growth which helped us make the decision to resume services to this important hub. Bangalore is a major gateway to Southern India and the state of Karnataka in particular, from where large number of people are employed in the GCC countries. We are confident the service will be well received."

The airline has also improved its connectivity to the Far East with more convenient arrival (06:00hrs) and departure (07:00hrs) times from Shanghai and a new morning departure time on its double daily service to Manila (10:30hrs).

Mr Majali explained, "We have worked hard to secure improved timings to and from Shanghai. Under the new schedule Shanghai is now part of our afternoon wave of departures from Bahrain with passengers arriving in Shanghai at 0600hrs ready to do business. Our new Shanghai schedule will not only please our existing customers but encourage more travellers to choose Gulf Air when going to doing business in this important financial hub."

He continued, "Having recently increased our Manila service to double daily, the new 10.30am departure time cements our position as a leading carrier for the region as well as receiving significant European traffic."

Gulf Air's full winter timetable is available to download at gulfair.com. The website also contains an interactive route map providing arrival, departure and connection times on passengers' chosen dates at the click of a button.