Gulf Air eyes US flights, will add free Wi-Fi and improved food as it upgrades service

Bahrain's Gulf Air plans to upgrade some aspects of its inflight offerings next year as it eyes a return to the U.S. amid its 75th anniversary celebrations.

At the Routes World 2024 conference in Bahrain Oct. 6, Gulf Air CEO Jeffrey Goh said the airline's soft product improvements will include new and upgraded food options, onboard amenities like free Wi-Fi and improved inflight entertainment content.

"New chinaware, new glassware, new cutlery, new soft finishings — all those will be coming onboard," he said.

The airline does not plan to update its seats and other aspects of the physical product onboard its planes because, as Goh put it, the interiors are "quite modern and new."

The average age of Gulf Air's fleet of 32 Airbus A320-family narrow-bodies and eight Boeing 787 wide-bodies is less than seven years, according to data from aviation analytics firm Cirium.

A historic player among giants

Gulf Air, founded as Gulf Aviation in 1949, was the flag carrier for the Persian Gulf nations of Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates for decades before the rise of major carriers like Emirates and Qatar Airways. It only became a solely Bahraini airline in 2007 when Oman sold its stake in the carrier.

Now, the historic airline is a small player among giants. Its fleet of 40 planes compares to well over 200 aircraft each at Emirates and Qatar Airways.

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As such, Goh — who only took the top job at Gulf Air in 2023 — is focused on expanding the airline's connectivity to and from Bahrain rather than competing for connecting traffic with its much larger rivals.

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"Your airline, a national carrier, will always be your flying billboard," he said.

Even as a national carrier, Gulf Air has ambitious growth plans. The airline intends to increase the number of destinations it serves by a quarter — or from around 60 cities to around 75 — by the end of the decade, Goh said.

Those plans include new U.S. flights. When asked about the timing, Goh said Gulf Air is working to meet the Federal Aviation Administration and Transportation Security Administration requirements necessary before it can begin flights. He declined to comment on where Gulf Air could fly.

The carrier's last U.S. flights to New York City's John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) from Bahrain and Abu Dhabi ended in 1997, according to Cirium Diio.

Gulf Air added seven new destinations to its map this year, including Geneva Airport (GVA), Munich Airport (MUC) and Shanghai Pudong International Airport (PVG), Cirium Diio schedule data shows.

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