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Sudipta Dev – Mumbai
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Mohamed Yousif Al-Binfalah
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Currently there are 25 scheduled commercial airlines flying into Bahrain International Airport in addition to 11 cargo flights. These serve 41 international destinations. The Indian market is extremely important as a contributor of origin and destination for Bahrain Airport Company, ranking second in the list after UAE. “We are focusing our 2014 route development strategy towards trying to secure direct services to unserved destinations such as Hyderabad, Kozhikode (Calicut) and Bengaluru. In terms of priority we are concentrating on regional destinations and these three will be the highest on our list when it comes to introducing direct services, whether by Jet Airways or Air India with whom we have excellent relationship, or with some new operator,” stated Mohamed Yousif Al-Binfalah, CEO, Bahrain Airport Company. He mentioned that they have been in talks with airlines like Indigo for quite sometime. “We have had regular meetings with them in international route development events,” stated Al-Binfalah.
Indians are the largest expatriate group in Bahrain, with a significant percentage from Kerala. “Even though we have excellent services between Bahrain and the Indian subcontinent through the likes of Jet Airways, Air India and Air India Express, but there are certain destinations which remain unserved and others that are underserved,” pointed out Al-Binfalah. In its efforts to explore more opportunities with the Indian subcontinent, Bahrain Airport Company had actively participated in the Routes Asia event last year in Mumbai where it was given the opportunity to provide additional details to some of the carriers that it would like to see operating in these unserved routes. The most contributing destinations in the Indian subcontinent, he pointed out, are Trivandrum and Kochi. “Trivandrum is top of the list and I believe Hyderabad is in third position. There are other destinations that are served whose market is not as big as Hyderabad, so this is a prime destination for us,” said Al-Binfalah. Currently, there are no direct flights to Hyderabad.
Work on the construction of the new airport terminal in Bahrain is expected to commence at the end of this year and will get completed in three-four years. “There are two possibilities – expanding the existing terminal or develop a brand new terminal not connected to the existing ones, but these remain options that are yet to be evaluated,” stated Al-Binfalah.
