GULF AIR, continues in a positive mood under president and chief executive James Hogan, the former BMi chief operating officer, only installed in June of last year. As sales director for the UK and offline Europe he has been joined by a former BMi colleague, Rohan Alce, who also held senior positions in Virgin Atlantic The national carrier of the Kingdom of Bahrain, Sultanate of Oman and the UAE says that for the time being it will concentrate its UK services at Heathrow, where from June onwards it will have four services daily (except Thursday) to its Bahrain and Abu Dhabi hubs, with through aircraft to Muscat. Services to Sydney from the Gulf are planned for later in the year and these could be non-stop with Airbus A340/500s, giving a very competitive overall travel time from London. As part of the complete re-vamp of the airline, gourmet chefs, which were introduced in the first class cabin on flights from London in September 2002, are now also operating on the daily services from Paris and Frankfurt. Business class passengers enjoy a new eight-tier menu, with individual selection and plating of a wide choice of dishes and, in a move that may well be copied by others, economy class passengers are now to be offered a two-tier service. A new all economy airline, with a name likely to be synonymous with Gulf Air is to be launched from Abu Dhabi in June, based on a fleet of six Boeing 767 http://www.gulfairco.com