Would you wanna share your soap with someone who has never been profitable? There is no hope of sustaining the current structure (that goes for everything; staff levels, fleet upgrades, routes etc) without lots n lots of the Sheihks lovely dinars. Same could be said pretty much for all the carriers out this way, especially the Gulf region. It's an evolution and things have dragged on like this for a long time, and may even continue for as much again, but eventually it'll come to the crunch and something will have to be done.
GF, as probably the largest employer of Bahrainis, apart from taxi driving
, would be a nightmare for the Sheihk if they had to downsize or worse, there'd be tonnes of angry Bahrainis on the streets of Manama. Might be easier for the Sheihky to keep printing the money than risk a social problem. That's one of the key differences between GF and the carriers next door. If something catastrophic happened at EK / EY etc the workforce would all have to return to their respective countries with minimal impact on the locals comparatively but GF would be a different story.
It would be in the interest of the other major players next door to see GF feel the pinch and downsize and lap up the bits worth taking but regional politics would probably play a large part in it beforehand.
Airline mergers are old hat in the West, time will tell if it catches on here.
Hustle On.
