Bahrain’s Gulf Air Sees Travel Demand Recovering in the Summer

(Bloomberg) — Bahrain’s national airline predicted demand for travel from its hub would rebound in coming weeks after the Iran war disrupted passenger flows to the region and forced the airline to halt operations.

“We are seeing higher forward bookings every week than the previous year” for July, Gulf Air Chief Executive Martin Gauss said in an interview in Rio de Janeiro. He said that demand for the winter months is at normal levels for now. Still, load factors are currently 3% lower than last year.

The airline was forced to stop flying out of the kingdom for 40 days, operate operations in Saudi Arabia and move planes out of Bahrain when the war began and the country came into the line of fire.

Gauss said the airline “does not deliberately lower prices to attract customers, because we don’t have to.” Fares have ticked up because of higher fuel prices, though the airline doesn’t decide ticket pricing based on fuel, “the market decides on the ticket price,” he said.

Airlines in the Persian Gulf have begun increasing capacity following the reopening of airspace over some of the world’s busiest travel hubs. Neighboring Emirates, the world’s largest carrier, has yet to fully rebuild its service and is operating at about 75% of its pre-war capacity.

Gauss joined the carrier in November, just a few months before the start of the war, with the aim of revitalizing the loss-making airline and offering a higher quality product. He previously ran Air Baltic AS.

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