Bahrain Air resumes flights to Indian city

Bahrain Air, which was forced to suspend flights on its Thiruvananthapuram route in the state of Kerala, India, has resumed operations. The second national carrier in the Gulf kingdom said it restarted flights on Thursday after a landing rights dispute that grounded its newly-launched service was resolved. The airline finally got permission from the Indian authorities following two weeks of negotiations. The Gulf state’s second biggest airline said earlier this month that it had halted flights after it had not received written approval to fly to the city. In a statement, Ibrahim Abdulla Alhamer, managing director, Bahrain Air, said: “We would like to extend our heartiest gratitude to all the officials from Bahrain and India who were involved with their honest efforts for making Bahrain Air resume its operations to Thiruvananthapuram. “I would take this opportunity to thank our valued passengers for their patience during interruptions of our flights”. Bahrain Air launched the route from Bahrain to Thiruvananthapuram with a view to tapping the Indian market, starting with four flights weekly and plans to increase to seven by the summer. The CEO of the airline, Richard Nuttall, told Arabian Business in an interview earlier this month that India would be one of its strongest markets in 2012, given the high number of Keralites living in Bahrain and the high demand for flights between the two. He added that the company hoped to sign a codeshare agreement with an Indian carrier in the next six to nine months in a bid to further boost the number of services to Indian cities and bolster the company’s revenues.