Bahrain's national carrier Gulf Air is set to launch daily flights to Turkish capital Istanbul starting from tomorrow (August 2). Thanks to its growing popularity and relaxed entry restrictions, Istanbul has merged as one of the airline’s favourite destinations for Bahrain and GCC customer base.

 

Gulf Air began the summer season with flights to 80% of its pre-pandemic network and is now trying to restore services to all cities in its original 2019 destination network. 

 

The airline has also announced that it has successfully launched all of its seasonal destinations for the summer of 2021 with direct flights to Mykonos and Santorini in Greece, Malaga in Spain and Alexandria and Sharm El Sheikh in Egypt as well as recently resuming Tbilisi in Georgia. 

 

The airline currently flies to and from Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Kuwait, Riyadh, Jeddah, Dammam, Medina, Muscat, Cairo, Amman, Casablanca, London, Paris, Frankfurt, Athens, Istanbul, Tbilisi, Larnaca, Bangkok, Manila, Singapore, Dhaka, Colombo, the Maldives and several destinations in India and Pakistan.

 

Announcing the direct flights to Istanbul, Gulf Air’s Acting CEO Captain Waleed Abdulhameed Al Alawi said: "We continuously take a closer look at market demands and monitor the trends of traffic from and to different points of our network. With constant changes in rules and regulations, we increase frequencies as we see fit to offer greater flexibility to our passengers."

 

"Being agile and adaptive to market needs is essential now more than ever and we're proud to be flexible to such changes," he stated.

 

Back in May, the airline announced that all its flights would be operated by 100% vaccinated crew including pilots and flight attendants. 

 

We have started internal vaccination campaign for our operating crew and front line staff since December 2020 and are proud to be one of the first airlines in the world to able to provide peace of mind to all passengers flying to any destination of its growing network," noted Al Alawi. 

 

"Moreover, recently Gulf Air announced offering complimentary Covid-19 travel insurance coverage to all ticket holders including health and quarantine expenses in the unexpected circumstances of being diagnosed with or contracting Covid-19 during passengers’ journeys," he added.