Again, it is just beyond comprehension how much money needs to be pumped into this little airline with only about 30 planes to keep it afloat! It comes down to a cost of almost 20mln dollars per yer, per aircraft, to keep going?
There must be some sort of black (money) hole somewehere...
Try suggesting this kind of goverment support in Europe or the states!
To relate;
Spanair lost 461mln dollars over the last three years and folded in the end after 26 years of service. The Catalan goverment injected almost 200mln euro's into it since 2009. They had 36 aircraft, quite similiar to Gulf Air.
Malev with around 20 aircraft had a debt of 271mln dollars and was ordered by the court to repay a goverment loan (bailout) and debt deferrals of 455mln dollars it had recieved between 2007 and 2010. Only recently did it stop flying after 66 years of service.
This compared to Gulf Air's 2.82bln dollars worth of goverment loans over the last 2 years alone ( if this last one is approved) and a loss in the last 10 years of 1 bln dollars makes it a stagering story of 'survival'.