Bahrain Air Launch Delay Prompts Tourism Worries

Bahrain Air, the kingdom’s first privately owned, low-cost airline, was due to be launched last week but operations have been put back for at least a month, due to issues with staff training in Amman, according to sources.
The announcement of the airline last November was met with great enthusiasm by those involved in the kingdom’s tourism and property industries at a time when a massive $3.63 trillion is being invested in the travel and tourism industry across the Middle Eastern region in the form of 600 new hotels which will mean 650,000 new rooms and lead to the creation of 1.5 million new jobs. The launch of Bahrain’s own airline is of paramount importance in the rolling out of its part of that wider plan: Bahrain itself is constructing 15 hotels with a capacity of 3,615 rooms this year.

Bahrain Air will initially fly routes to Dubai, Mashad, Beirut and Alexandria but will add another 9 destinations by April next year, 20 by 2009 and 25 by 2010 to including the Indian subcontinent, a growing sector within the tourism marketplace.