Royal Jordanian, Gulf Air ink deal

Royal Jordanian and Gulf Air have entered into a full codeshare agreement to offer passengers 11-weekly flights between Amman, Jordan and Manama, Bahrain, Royal Jordanian said yesterday in a statement. The move comes as the present bilateral codeshare agreement between the two carriers, under which both airlines were operating and marketing flights between Amman and Manama, became unilateral. Aviation analyst Saj Ahmad, of StrategicAero Research, however, is not entirely convinced about the agreement. "If the earlier arrangement between the two carriers did not yield any significant financial rewards for either of them, then this new full codeshare is going to be more of the same," he told Gulf News. He added that two weak and struggling carriers getting together "seldom make good partners". Royal Jordanian chief executive Hussain Dabbas, who is set to leave the company next month to take up a new role at the International Air Transport Association, said in a statement that the unilateral codeshare agreement concluded with Gulf Air will result in reducing operational expenses. Adding to this, Gulf Air CEO, Samer Majali, said: "The new agreement fac-ilitates both airlines to streamline operations in the interest of serving our passengers as well as the carriers in response to market demand." Ahmad, meanwhile, begs to differ, as he said: "It won't derive any monetary strength, the costs of the marketing exercises alone will be a cash drain, and unless there is some hidden agenda behind the scenes to test the water ahead of a pan-Arab merger, it's difficult to see this pact being there in the long term." Calling the deal "worrisome", he said: "Passengers are not exactly benefitting from other destinations on Gulf Air's or Royal Jordanian's network. It's a limited, almost worrisome deal in case something goes wrong." Gulf Air's Majali, on the other hand, said that under the latest agreement, the flights from Bahrain provide "excellent onward connectivity to the Far East, Saudi Arabia and the Indian sub-continent" with minimal waiting time in Bahrain. "While on return flights, passengers can connect via Amman to a number of European cities across Royal Jordanian's extensive network," he said.