Originally Posted by
Smoke mountain
Gulf Air termnaited contracts of 170 employees, the offical statment that most of them are expats and the tremnaiton is due to cut losses
I'm not a subscriber so can't read the whole story, but the local rag says:"LABOUR officials will hold an urgent meeting today to discuss the dismissal of dozens of employees from Bahrain’s national carrier Gulf Air. Contracts of Bahraini and expatriate employees were terminated yesterday as part of restructuring plans."
There is at least one Gulf Air trade union I believe.
But on the bright side.
"In November Gulf Air will start operating its latest fleet of Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner on the Bahrain-Bangkok route."
(I'm only SLF, but stopped flying GF years ago because of the age of the planes and quality of service. After the Qatar kerfuffle, I tried them again to BKK and was pleasantly surprised to find clean, new cabins; decent, helpful staff; and reasonable F&B options. The IFE is still s**t though!).
AFAIK Gulf Air has been losing money for years, but it is such a massive employer on the island (directly and indirectly) that its loss would be a hammer blow for the local economy.