Financial Times

Gulf Air discontinuing flights to Colombo
Gulf Air, ironically marking its 25th anniversary of flights to Colombo from Abu Dhabi, announced last week it was discontinuing services to Colombo and Casablanca by end March.

"Gulf Air will be implementing changes to its network in Africa and Asia, and has decided to terminate operations to Casablanca in Morocco from March 24 and services to Colombo from March 26 this year," the airline said in a statement.

Gulf Air plans to discontinue the Colombo sector was exclusively reported in last week's The Sunday Times FT. "This decision will allow us to re-allocate our assets more effectively, strengthening our network still further in key areas, either by increasing flight frequencies to key destinations or by assigning the aircraft for service on high demand sectors," it added.

Staff in the Colombo office said they were shocked by the decision. "Every year we have heard this rumour about closing down but never expected it to happen this year," one staff member said. The airline has 19 staff and an expatriate country manager. Gulf Air is among the oldest airlines along with Singapore Airlines to fly to Colombo since the 1980s.

Other Middle Eastern airlines like Emirates Airlines, one of the biggest and more profitable in the world, Qatar Airways, Etihad Airways and Air Arabia are relatively new companies that emerged in the late 1980s to early 2000.

The airline statement said it was in a stronger position than it has been in for many years and the announced plans were to optimise performance across the business and its network to ensure that the airline meets its objectives for 2005.

Staffers said the reason for the shutting down of the Colombo sector was due to poor incoming load factors. "Loads from Colombo to Abu Dhabi were fine but from there the passenger traffic was poor," one official said, adding that there was a shortage of aircraft too, particularly, when planes were sent for usual checks and testing.

Back to Business