United Airlines will become the first US carrier to fly into Bahrain when it extends its Washington – Kuwait route to serve the kingdom later this month.
The company began Middle Eastern operations in Kuwait in 2006 and launched its Dubai service in 2008. Bahrain will be the airline’s third destination in the region in a year that sees United focusing on service and growth.
Marcel Fuchs, managing director sales, Europe Middle East, Africa and India, said: “We have now expanded our portfolio and have been very, very pleased with the business in Dubai and Kuwait, despite 2009, which encouraged us to open up Bahrain.
“This will allow us to optimise the load factor. The Bahrain flight will be daily beginning April 18.
“We also expect to attract local traffic from Kuwait to Bahrain, for this we will need to be competitive as there are lots of seats available on this route but we will be offering a three-class configuration in a wide-body Boeing 777 which can offer all the comfort of a long-haul journey on a short-haul trip.
“But we will be primarily selling the service to the US and we have been really intrigued by the diversity of the business coming from Bahrain – there’s US military, banks and the financial sector, the oil and energy sector, substantial business coming from the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia and also strong student traffic. Bahrain is definitely on the radar of people in the US. I would expect about a third of the business to be generated from Bahrain, with the rest coming from Kuwait.”
The new service will be added to the existing daily Washington to Kuwait route flying Washington – Kuwait – Bahrain and vice versa.
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United is currently in the process of reconfiguring its Boeing seven-series aircraft and has finished the 767s and 747s. The 777 operating on the new route will be the first of this type to be completed with eight first-class seats, 40 business class and the remainder in economy and economy-plus which offers extra legroom and can be purchased with the frequent flyer silver card at the airport at a cost of $149 to Washington or $24 to Kuwait.
Fuchs added: “Another important part of what we are focusing on, beyond workable upscaling of our product, is to run a reliable airline. We have focused enormously on that and have the number one position in 75 major US carriers in our sector – we have previously been in the top few but we now have the top spot.
“During the downturn, the four areas we have been particularly looking at are staffing, reliability, cost structure and revenue production.”
He added that though 2009 was a very challenging year, both for United and for the industry as a whole, the beginning of this year has been encouraging.
In January unit revenue per available seat saw a 10.5 per cent increase year on year. In February this rose to 18 per cent – January was seven points above key competitors.
January also saw 25 per cent international premium cabin bookings, in February this was 28 per cent, so change is evident both domestically and internationally and in 2009 the Middle Eastern services outperformed all other international sectors.
As well as Bahrain, other new routes announced for this year are: March 29 Washington to Madrid and a second flight from Brussels to Chicago; May 2 Rome to Chicago and June 20 Accra daily.
Speaking about the new security measures following the attempted Christmas bombing which have left some Middle East nationals nervous of flying to the US fearing they will be subject to draconian measures both on board and at arrivals, Fuchs was quick to reassure saying: “Safety and security is our number one priority and we are working closely with the TSA (Transportation Security Administration) to ensure compliance with all necessary procedures.
“But the country and the people have not changed and we welcome visitors from the Middle East and in fact we have not seen any decline in visitor numbers from the region – overall value makes people come to the US and travel on United.”
He added that a successful code share agreement with Qatar and joint ventures with Lufthansa, Air Canada and Continental allow travellers to mix and match tickets and routes to a huge range of US and European destinations.