Gulf Air wins award at Athens

Gulf Air was also ranked 12 amongst all airlines operating in and out of Greece based on seat factor, the top airline to Middle East, way ahead of other airlines in the Middle East.

"We are indeed very delighted to be chosen for the award within one year of starting our operation to Greece. Our traffic to and from Greece has shown a remarkable growth of 49 percent," says Gulf Air Vice President Network Fareed Al Alawi.

"We are also the largest carrier in 2005 to Middle East with Bahrain being the fastest growing Middle Eastern destination from Greece as revealed during the conference."

The Athens International Airport holds an annual airline marketing conference in which awards are presented by AIA to airlines that recorded the highest passenger development in 2005, in recognition of their contribution to the airport's overall record growth.

Awards are presented in various categories of geographical region, thin route, best performing newcomer and the best of the top-ten airlines.

"Gulf Air's significant growth in this sector has been fuelled by our ability to serve the Greek-Australian community and visiting friends and relatives from both countries, in close co-operation with Olympic Airways,"

adds Gulf Air Vice President Marketing and Sales Danny Barranger.

"Another factor is that we were able to impress upon the Greek population to use Gulf Air for their business and leisure travel and, our convenient connectivity to the Indian Subcontinent has helped us serve the expatriate population in Greece in linking them to their homeland."

Gulf Air started its service to Athens from Bahrain in November 2003 with daily A 320 flights and has been witnessing healthy passenger growth ever since. In order to meet the summer demands, Gulf Air will be increasing its capacity from Athens by an additional 200 seats a day. This will support the increased demand from the local market as well as visiting customers.

"The award is a reflection of the dedication and effort the Gulf Air Greece team has put during the last two years," says Mr Barranger.

"But more importantly, it reflects the effective acceptance of Gulf Air brand in this market and, the support of the travel trade in Greece for Gulf Air.

"This award is just the beginning and we will make every effort to build on this achievement with our customer-focussed innovations and services and will continue to remain the airline of choice for this market."