For several years now, executives at Bahrain-based Gulf Air have been talking about plans for the airline to resume flights to the United States. In September 2024, the company’s CEO indicated that service could start within a year. Then in April 2025, Gulf Air received regulatory approval for launching such service.
Continue reading: Gulf Air Launching Bahrain To New York Flights As Of October 2025
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
Good luck, with that horrible departure time for both originating and connecting passengers.
That would absolutely help.
AA codesharing is a major, if not the biggest reason as to how Cathay Pacific and Qatar Airways have been able to grow so much in the USA.
Would have been great if they launched service to PHL with AA partnership. No competition from gulf carriers at PHL and plenty of connecting pax from PHL to Middle East and India
Back in 1996/1997 they flew any variation of JFK, Bahrain, Larnaca and Houston with the A340.
Houston was stopped and then they switched to the 767 and changed the stop over to Geneva before suspending flights to the US.
It was definitely an interesting operation to work with.
GulfAir left me disappointed because as a business class passenger, they had a very low weight limit for my cabin bag and made me check it. Business class and they still played that game.
“You can’t compete with airlines that are bigger in size, volume or with prices. You can only compete in quality. I can compete with any airline, no matter the size, with the quality of my product. That’s the battle I willingly participate with a chance to win.”
If this is the airline's strategy, they really need to get to work on their inflight service.
I recently flew GF four sectors from UK to Singapore via Bahrain and whilst the hard product (apex suites) are up there with the best IMHO the rest of the onboard product was lagging. It was in no way terrible just no where near what you would experience onboard the other ME carriers having flown Etihad, Emirates, Qatar, Oman or even Saudia.
The catering was fairly basic and there was just zero consistency in the service delivery with the crew not particularly polished. Each of the four different sectors was completely different - some gave PJ's on the ground, others after the meal was served in the air. Sometimes the crew started on the left hand side, sometimes on the right and looped around. There just seemed to be no 'standard'.
To their advantage, they have a GREAT little hub at Manama airport. The terminal is almost brand new and extremely modern and efficient.
I have fond memories of Gulf Air (I flew them as a kid from Sydney to Singapore, my first ever Business Class flight!) and I would really like to see them succeed.
Gulf Air used to have a much more impressive network relative to other carriers in the region than they do.
Makes you think they have proposed their times at JFK based on terminal and slot availability. Peak afternoon space and slots are hard to come by at JFK.
They don't even connect w/ their flights to/from India which will generate volume if they timed correctly to them.
4am departure from Bahrain indicates that most of the traffic will be connecting, as indicated in the article.
Yup, I remember taking them on a childhood summer trip to visit grandparents in India - JFK-GVA-BAH-BOM being the routing.
If I remember right, it was BOM-AUH-LHR-JFK on the way back, but I was super young so probably getting some of this mixed up.
Just remember getting some nice A340 magnets, and posters and stuff as it was their new shiny toy at the time.
Good luck, with that horrible departure time for both originating and connecting passengers.
4am departure indicates connecting traffic as midnight is when most of the flights from east is inbound connecting to west
4 am departure? So the plane that arrives at JFK at 10:35 am sits on the ground for 17.5 hours. Could this possibly get any more inefficient?
There's nothing wrong with that.
Admittedly it's not really an issue with most widebodies, but do you really fancy the risk of someone's 20kg bag landing on your shoulder while you're in your regional business class aisle seat enjoying your pre-departure drink?
I think it's quite a good departure time given that it's a very long flight, you can eat at midnight, have a couple of drinks in the terminal/lounge and then go straight to sleep once airborne. Of course that works a lot better for those of us who go to bed around/after midnight than those whose bedtime has been unchanged since their elementary school days.
AA flies from PHL to DOH, and ALL the passengers on that flight connect onward on Qatar Airways to India, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, etc. AA would have no interest in cooperating with GF- it would dilute their own busines.
the plane lands in JFK at 10:55 am and leaves JFK to go back to Bahrain at 3PM. What are you talking about 17 hours on the ground?
The problem is that Gulf Air's main banks of arrivals are 10pm-midnight and 6am-8am, so it's not especially convenient. Unless they make some significant adjustments to their entire schedule
Agree, it's a long wait for connecting pax and very early arrival to the airport for pax departing locally. I would much rather connect through any other hub in the Gulf region.
I just tried to book from SE Asia and saw 2 seats but I guess it's phantom as I got an error after selecting the price.
Its a 3X flight.. The aircraft lands back in Bahrain and will be used somewhere else in between. at JFK its only on the ground 4 hours, which is reasonable.
All Reward availability on Gulf has vanished and there is no information about this fact anywhere