Back After 28 Years: This Middle Eastern Airline Begins 14-Hour Boeing 787 Flights To The US

On October 1, Gulf Air returned to New York JFK, which is not among the world’s ten busiest airports. It uses JFK’s Terminal 1. It only announced the route from Bahrain in mid-July. It had just two-and-a-half months to grow awareness and sales, although its long-term codeshare agreement with American Airlines via London Heathrow will have given it better visibility in the market.

Gulf Air previously flew to New York until 1997. While the flights were nearly always from Bahrain, they were also from Abu Dhabi and Doha, as it was historically the flag carrier of the UAE and Qatar (and also Oman). Some JFK services were extended to Houston, which would have only increased costs and losses further.

Gulf Air Is Back In The USA

Blocked at up to 13h 55m, the route covers 5,747 nautical miles (10,643 km) each way. It is by far Gulf Air’s longest service by both time and distance. It took off a few months after Etihad Airways launched its new longest route, which is from Abu Dhabi to Atlanta, and on the same day that British Airways announced its next US link, which is from London Heathrow to St. Louis.

Gulf Air stated its desire to return to the US on many occasions. However, the airline’s Group CEO, Jeffrey Goh (who will be replaced by the ex-airBaltic CEO Martin Gauss), previously emphasized that it must first return to profitability after many years of substantial losses.

In 2024, Goh said that Gulf Air would likely resume US flights in 2025, as this is the year of the carrier’s 75th anniversary. So it proved. Appropriately, the first round-trip flight was aboard A9C-FG, which is a 6.1-year-old Boeing 787-9. It is adorned in the carrier’s 75th anniversary livery. I flew this frame from London Heathrow to Bahrain to attend Routes World 2024.

Connections Will Be Key, But Not Many Places Connect With A Competitive Schedule

Unsurprisingly, the local Bahrain to JFK market is tiny. Just 33 daily passengers flew between the two airports in the 12 months to May 2025. The tiny nation’s desire to increase tourism, along with major events like the Grand Prix, will help. Still, long routes require a good amount of higher-yielding point-to-point traffic to offset the lower-yielding connecting passengers that typically provide the volume and help achieve higher loads.

Like other Middle Eastern operators, transfer traffic will be critical to Gulf Air. However, its JFK schedule (shown above) is not particularly conducive to competitive waits in Bahrain. For example, only Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Riyadh will connect within four hours in both directions.

Other cities have an even longer wait. Extending the wait to five hours (which is getting quite long and uncompetitive) adds Chennai, Delhi, Dubai, Jeddah, and Mumbai. Given the multitude of competing airlines, such times might mean lower fares, and that it’ll be even lower-yielding.

It Is The 9th Middle Eastern Passenger Airline To Serve JFK

Gulf Air joins Arkia, El Al, Emirates, Etihad, Kuwait Airways, Qatar Airways, Royal Jordanian, and Saudia in operating from the Middle East to JFK. Until the year’s end, these nine carriers collectively have between 10 and 17 daily departures from JFK, which is the US’s top airport for widebody flights and the world’s second-busiest airport for long-haul services.

The 17 departures on October 9, for example, will leave JFK as follows. Funnily enough, Gulf Air won’t operate that day. They will leave at 00:55 (El Al to Tel Aviv), 01:20 (Qatar Airways to Doha), 10:30 (El Al to Tel Aviv), 11:00 (Saudia to Riyadh), 11:20 (Emirates to Dubai), 11:20 (Qatar Airways to Doha), 11:30 (Arkia to Tel Aviv), 13:29 (El Al to Tel Aviv), 15:45 (Etihad to Abu Dhabi), 17:30 (El Al to Tel Aviv), 17:55 (Kuwait Airways to Kuwait), 20:20 (Royal Jordanian to Amman), 22:00 (Qatar Airways to Doha), 22:20 (El Al to Tel Aviv), 22:20 (Emirates to Dubai via Milan), 22:40 (Etihad to Abu Dhabi), and 23:00 (Emirates to Dubai).