Gulf Air said it aims to restore its full scheduled global network by June 2026, marking a major step in Bahrain’s aviation recovery after the reopening of the kingdom’s airspace and the gradual restart of operations at Bahrain International Airport. The carrier said the rebuilding plan will take its services back to more than 50 destinations, with routes returning in phases from April through the start of June. The airline’s latest timetable shows a staggered relaunch designed to bring back short-haul, regional and long-haul links in sequence. Gulf Air said its current operating network from Bahrain already includes Riyadh, London Heathrow, Jeddah, Muscat, Dubai, Nairobi, Lahore, Dhaka, Islamabad and Istanbul. Abu Dhabi is due to return in April, while services to Delhi, Mumbai, Thiruvananthapuram, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kochi, Paris, Frankfurt and Bangkok are scheduled from April 21. From May 1, the airline plans to resume Doha, Bangalore, Goa, Munich, Moscow, Milan, Athens, Casablanca, Cairo, Manila, Malé, Colombo, Kuwait, Madinah, Dammam, Karachi and Amman. Manchester, Rome, Guangzhou and Singapore are listed for May 15, followed on June 1 by London Gatwick, Larnaca, Baku, Tbilisi, Shanghai, New York and Al-Qassim. Summer seasonal routes to Geneva, Málaga, Nice and El Alamein are also due to open from that month.
That schedule matters beyond one airline’s commercial planning. Bahrain’s Civil Aviation Affairs said the airspace reopening came after a temporary closure introduced as a precaution during regional tensions, while Bahrain Airport Company has described the operational restart as phased and tightly coordinated. The airport’s return to service has therefore been presented as a controlled recovery rather than an overnight return to normal capacity, with authorities placing safety and traffic management ahead of speed.
For Gulf Air, the restoration carries strategic weight because the carrier sits at the centre of Bahrain’s connectivity model. The airline has long relied on Bahrain as a linking point between Gulf markets, South Asia, parts of Europe and selected long-haul destinations. The route list being restored shows that priority has been given to high-demand business and labour corridors first, especially across the Gulf and South Asia, before the full long-haul and leisure network is rebuilt. London, Paris, Frankfurt, Bangkok, Singapore, Shanghai and New York all feature in the recovery plan, suggesting Gulf Air is trying to regain both premium traffic and transfer flows that are critical to yields and aircraft utilisation.
The airline had earlier relied on temporary operations via King Fahd International Airport in Dammam while Bahrain’s airspace remained shut. Gulf Air said those interim services would continue until April 30, giving the carrier a bridging mechanism as normal scheduling from Bahrain is restored. That stopgap helped maintain at least part of its network and preserve passenger movement during disruption, but it also underlined the cost of prolonged airspace instability for hub-based carriers whose networks depend on timing, onward connections and aircraft positioning.
The wider industry context remains fragile. Airlines across the region have been reassessing schedules, reducing frequencies on some routes and warning passengers of ongoing volatility linked to geopolitical risks and airspace management. Reporting from other carriers shows that even where flights are restarting, many operators are doing so cautiously and with reduced intensity. That makes Gulf Air’s June target ambitious, though not implausible, provided regional conditions hold and there are no further security shocks.
Passengers are likely to welcome the return of a broader Gulf Air map, but the recovery still comes with practical caveats. Phased restoration usually means uneven seat supply, revised timings, aircraft rotations that can change at short notice and slower rebuilding of connection banks. Authorities and the airline have both signalled that schedules may still be adjusted in line with operational and airspace developments. That caution is significant because it shows the company is trying to balance commercial urgency with the reputational damage that can come from overpromising in a disrupted market.
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Bahrain