The Hindu Business Line : Gulf Air eager to start flights from Hyderabad

GULF Air, the national carrier of the Kingdom of Bahrain, the Sultanate of Oman and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), is "very keen" to operate to Hyderabad, the airline's President and Chief Executive Officer, Mr James Hogan, said here on Monday.

"We are very keen to go to Hyderabad and open the new route. But we will have to wait till air services bilaterals are held," Mr Hogan told Business Line and noted that the airline was also exploring the possibility of operating to Kozhikode, Ahmedabad and Amritsar, among other cities.

India is an important market for Gulf Air as it saw an increase of more than 13 per cent in passengers, up from 7,84,128 during 2002 to 8,88,357 during 2003.

Meanwhile, from June this year, travellers from India will have an easier and faster connection to London as Gulf Air is launching a daily flight on the Muscat-London sector from June 21. The new flight will provide a passenger travelling from Mumbai a connection to the UK within 50 minutes of arriving in the Gulf kingdom.

However, keeping in mind the traditional good relations, which have existed between the Gulf region and India, the airline is to bring out a 60-page brochure aimed at attracting more business people and tourists to India, the airline's General Manager, India, Mr John Anderson, said.

"The `India holiday destination' brochure is to be launched by the airline's Holiday Division and will be out in the next 30 days," Mr Hogan said.

Questioned on whether the launch of Etihad Airways, a new airline which is to shortly start flying a daily service between Abu Dhabi and Mumbai and a three-times-a-week service to Delhi, would affect the operations of Gulf Air, officials replied in the negative.

Gulf Air, at present, flies to seven destinations within the country, including Delhi, Thiruvananthapuram, Chennai, Kolkata and Bangalore. The airline currently operates 57 weekly flights to India.