MANAMA – Gulf Air, the national carrier of the Kingdom of Bahrain, posted significant improvements in its 2012 half yearly performance against the same period last year across its business operations indicating positive results. Announcing the highlights of the Jan-June 2012 business performance of the company, Gulf Air CEO Samer Majali said that the airline has recorded 6 percent increase in revenue and 13 percent increase in passenger numbers compared to the same period last year. Seat load factor has reached 77 percent for the same period registering a 5 percent growth. The airline's Falcon Gold premium class alone has seen a healthy 35 percent growth while economy class has seen 12 percent growth over the same period last year indicating the passengers increasing preference to fly with Gulf Air due to several new features and facilities introduced recently. Gulf Air currently operates one of the youngest fleets in the region with an average fleet age of just 4.7 years. The airline's on-time punctuality has grown to 79 percent as against 78 percent in 2011 and 74 percent in 2010 while its technical dispatch reliability has reached 99.4 percent. Customer complaints have reduced by 11 percent. The introduction of the Staff Appreciation Scheme last year has received much appreciation from customers with over 2000 frequent flyers complimenting the airline's customer service. Majali said "we were able to achieve these results with the combined efforts of rationalized route network, fleet optimization, improved sales efficiency, products and services, cost efficiency measures and expenditure reduction. This is by no means a small achievement considering factors such as the temporary suspension of eight profitable routes and high fuel prices that have had a negative impact on our traffic and revenue." He added "we are pushing forward with our cost-efficiency and sales efficiency measures in 2012 and are targeting a further 15 percent reduction in its cost base for the full year; we have already achieved a cost base savings of BD.8 million between Jan and May this year." – SG
