Postcard from Bahrain – When is an Airline not an Airline? | 59steps:
"When is an airline not an airline? When it’s an heirloom.
Such is the fate of Gulf Air, Bahrain’s flag carrier and perennial financial basket case. It’s the airline that can’t find a CEO – as the transport minister noted a couple of months ago in a fit of dangerous candour – because nobody in the aviation industry wants to take the job. The reason? According to the minister, too much government interference, which is not surprising given that there are three cabinet ministers on the Board, and that each time the airline goes to its masters for another subsidy to shore up its losses, questions are asked in Parliament.
For a Gulf state, a national carrier is more than a means of ferrying its great and good from A to B. It’s a symbol of national prestige. If Gulf Air were allowed to fail, it would be a humiliation – an admission that this tiny country couldn’t stand shoulder to shoulder with its oil-rich neighbours in the Gulf Cooperation Council: Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Oman."
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