New 777s to operate on London route form March
Gulf Air is looking to serve up to six new destinations in Europe over the next few years.
The national carrier for the Middle East kingdom of Bahrain is also eyeing destinations on the east coast of America and plans to increase capacity to India.
Mr Björn Näf, the airline's ceo, said he also planned to introduce new 777s with lie flat beds on the three times a day service to London Heathrow in March. They will replace the existing A340s on the route.
It is understood that three of the 777s will come from Jet airways, which has not used them, while the fourth is from XL which went bust last year.
Mr Näf was outlining future plans for Gulf at a press briefing today (January 13) in London.
He said Gulf was hoping to start a service to Milan and then Munich in the next couple of years but was also looking at Moscow and Russia in general, Amsterdam, Barcelona and Madrid.
He described Milan as a "powerhouse" with a catchment area of 25m people and where Etihad and Emirates were moving into and Lufthansa was building up a hub.
"These destinations are on our radar screen based on data and analysis by our network team," he said.
He said the destinations on the east coast of America, which could include New York, Washington and Boston, would be considered when the new 777s arrive.
Gulf was also in talks with the Indian government abut increasing, at first, its capacity and then its frequencies to destinations like Mumbai and Delhi.
Mf Näf, a 43-year-old Swiss national who joined Gulf in July 2007, said the airline was "floating around with no clear guidance" after the previous ceo James Hogan left to take over Etihad Airways.
Since the arrival of Mr Näf and his team, the airline had placed orders for 35 Airbuses and 24 Boeing 787 Dreamliners.
The first of the Airbuses, five A320s and four A330s were due to arrive this year with the four 777s.
It had also signed a wide-ranging codeshare agreement with American Airlines.
He said the strategic focus of Gulf was on the business traveller, rather than the leisure market and he wanted to open up new routes to financial centres like Milan.
The airline opened two new destinations to Shanghai in China and Hyderabad in India last year.
To attract the business market, Mr Näf said Gulf was offering a ten minute check-in time from car to aircraft when leaving Bahrain, 15 minutes from aircraft to car on arrival in Bahrain and 30 minutes connection time.
The airline had also started in December in hedging its fuel costs.
Mr Näf said December had been a "rough month" with passengers downgrading from first to premium and from premium to economy.
"I believe that will continue in the first and second quarters of this year. Big projects in the Middle East are being discontinued and banks are laying off people. These are passengers that are missing and that is definitely a challenge to us," he said.
Mr Näf said he expected 2009 to be a tough year with more consolidation and more airlines going out of business.
But "but by 2010 I think we will be coming out of this challenging situation."
He said he hoped Gulf would move back into profit in 2010.
Then, he said, Middle East carriers would be a threat to European airline.
The Middle East is an "aviation powerhouse" with a perfect geographical location as the gateway between east and west.
Mr Näf said that traffic flow from east to west or vice versa would not go via Europe if the passengers did not have business there but through the Middle East.
www.gulfair.com