For a year now, the primary air transport actors in Bahrain have been under one wing – the Gulf Air Group
“In October 2022, His Royal Highness Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, the Crown Prince and Prime Minister of Bahrain decided to collapse the two boards into one,” His Excellency Zayed R. Alzayani, Chairman of Gulf Air Group Holding, told ARGS in an interview in Istanbul.
This means that the country’s flag carrier Gulf Air, Bahrain Airport Company, and affiliates including the Gulf Air Academy, are now under the same management.
“It is a huge honour to be designated as Chairman by His Majesty with the vision to create a brand for Bahrain and the aspiration to take this brand global,” said Alzayani. “We don’t aspire to be as big as our neighbours,” he noted, but the aim is to achieve an efficient and high-quality air transport system with high levels of connectivity to deliver Bahrain’s Economic Vision 2030. Creating a single aviation group is believed to be critical to achieve Bahrain’s goals. Before the group was created, each company had its own strategy. “It was very difficult to drive in one direction because you had the CEOs within the group with different mandates and different routes,” said Alzayani.
“Now we are all together, we look at it with a holistic view,” he said, referring to meetings in Istanbul where this approach was put into action. “We are looking at the benefit of the economy of the country.”
The creation of a single group involves a great deal of work, which will take about two years. “We really want to synchronise the group,” said Alzayani. This will see the standardisation of procedures across the businesses and the development of shared services, in addition to a harmonised strategic approach.
Routes 2024 will be the perfect platform to showcase Bahrain’s new, award-winning terminal, which opened in 2021. “We have the newest terminal in the Middle East, which we are very proud of, done on time and within budget,” said Alzayani.
With the Routes host role and the hope of the resumption of services to China and the USA, “2024 is going to be a big year for Bahrain,” said Alzayani.
For Gulf Air, 2018 was an important year as it launched its ‘boutique’ business strategy, which prioritised product and customer experience along with profitability. “We came out with a message of change that we wanted to move from being an airline of convenience to being an airline of choice – not just choice our customers, but choice for our employees,” explained Alzayani.
This led to its first profitable quarter in 17 years in 2019. Progress stalled during the pandemic but is powering up again now, and the intention is for Gulf Air to reach a fleet size of 50-60 aircraft by 2027/28, he said.
Notwithstanding disruptive factors, such as regional troubles and fuel price volatility, Alzayani hopes the group will be back in the black in the next two years.
When he was Minister of Industry, Commerce and Tourism, Alzayani explained how he was frequently asked how Bahrain could make itself stand out in the Middle East as a destination in a region where there is significant competition for visitors.
For instance, Alzayani sees the reform in Saudi Arabia not as a threat but as an opportunity. “If you have a market that is opening up next to you, you should be able to capture more of that [market],” he said. “It’s about finding the right strategy to promote yourself there.”
There are already flights to five cities in Saudi Arabia from Bahrain with another two or three likely to be added in the future.
The charm of Bahrain is in its people, said Alzayani, who are “very hospitable and genuine… I think maybe [due to] being an island on trading routes for centuries where we’ve always been exposed to different cultures.”
Routes delegates are looking forward to experiencing this welcome firsthand next year.
