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Gulf Air commences weekly 
services to Kabul from June

DUBAI — Gulf Air, the national carrier of the Kingdom of Bahrain, on Wednesday said it will start four weekly flights to Kabul from June 15.

Gulf Air will be the first ‘full service’ scheduled commercial carrier in the Middle East to connect Afghanistan with the kingdom.

“The launching of our service to Kabul follows extensive safety and security audits, and further demonstrates our strategy to connect the Kingdom of Bahrain with niche and under-served markets within the region that have high growth potential,” Samer Majali, Chief Executive Officer of Gulf Air, said.

The announcement follows the airline’s recent launch of services to Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, Isfahan in Iran, Basra in Iraq, Milan in Italy and Geneva in Switzerland, which brings the number of new destinations opened in 2011 to six. “The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan has seen some remarkable growth recently and the government is committed to facilitate and promote the development of a dynamic, competitive private sector by closely working in partnership with local businesses to revitalise and expand the economy,” Majali said.

“We are confident that our service to Kabul will be as successful as our recently launched routes,” Majali said.

“By connecting Kabul with Bahrain we are opening a huge commercial opportunity for Afghanistan’s well known traditional industries such as carpets and gems, and the industrial sectors namely construction and engineering, IT/telecommunications, transportation, and of course mining, which are poised for take-off. We also foresee a huge opportunity for Bahrain’s private sector businesses in Afghanistan,” Majali concluded. 
— muzaffarrizvi@khaleejtimes.com