Gulf Air opens special India flights via Dammam for Bahrain passengers

Special flights help stranded passengers travel during Bahrain airspace closure

Last updated: March 26, 2026 | 17:02

Nivetha Dayanand, Assistant Business Editor

2 MIN READ

Gulf Air opens special India flights via Dammam for Bahrain passengers

Dubai: Gulf Air has introduced a series of limited repatriation flights to key cities in the Indian subcontinent, offering a route for passengers travelling to and from Bahrain while the country’s airspace remains closed.

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The flights will operate via King Fahd International Airport in Dammam, providing a temporary workaround for disrupted travel across the region.

The move comes at a time when many passengers have faced cancellations and uncertainty, with several airlines adjusting schedules due to ongoing regional developments.

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Who can travel and how it works

The flights are restricted to passengers eligible to travel to and from Bahrain, with no transit or local boarding permitted in Dammam. That means travellers cannot use these services as connecting routes to other destinations.

Passengers with confirmed bookings will be provided transport between Bahrain and Dammam, ensuring continuity of travel despite the closure of Bahrain International Airport.

Bookings can be made through Gulf Air’s website, mobile app or authorised agents, with the airline advising travellers to check for updates regularly.

Routes focus on Indian subcontinent

The limited schedule includes services connecting Dammam with Dhaka, Cochin, New Delhi and Trivandrum over the coming days.

These routes reflect strong travel demand between Bahrain and South Asia, particularly among residents seeking to return home or resume work commitments.

Also Read: Bahrain-Pakistan travel: Gulf Air opens bookings for special Dammam-Karachi flight

Also Read: UAE flight update: Which UAE, international airlines are operating special flights?

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The flights are being rolled out in phases across late March and early April, offering a narrow but critical travel window for affected passengers.

Wider network continues through Dammam

Alongside these special services, Gulf Air continues to operate a temporary network of ten international destinations via Dammam, including major cities such as London, Paris, Frankfurt and Bangkok.

This allows the airline to maintain partial connectivity while Bahrain’s airspace remains closed, though capacity remains limited.

The airline has confirmed that normal operations will resume only once Bahrain’s airspace reopens, with no firm timeline in place.

Nivetha DayanandAssistant Business Editor

Nivetha Dayanand is Assistant Business Editor at Gulf News, covering aviation, financial markets and commodities. A business and financial journalist with a strong interest in multimedia storytelling, she regularly takes complex financial and economic subjects beyond the written word, producing explainer videos that make them easier for a wider audience to understand. Nivetha has interviewed senior policymakers, business leaders and global financial figures both on and off camera. Her past guests include UAE Minister of Economy and Tourism Abdulla bin Touq Al Marri, Khaled bin Alwaleed Al Saud, a member of the House of Saud and the founder and CEO of KBW Ventures, Jihad Azour, Director of the Middle East and Central Asia Department at the International Monetary Fund and Indian ministers Hardeep Singh Puri and N. Chandrababu Naidu. She has also hosted and moderated panels, conferences and awards shows, bringing her newsroom experience to live conversations on business, finance and the economy. An Erasmus Mundus journalism alum, Nivetha is drawn to stories that affect people directly and to reporting that gives a platform to voices that might otherwise go unheard. She was among the first journalists to speak to Petrofac employees in the UAE about unpaid salaries, broke the news of the planned demolition of Dubai’s well-known “Toyota Building”, and helped set the record straight on widely circulated claims that a giant replica of the Moon was coming to Dubai. More recently, her exclusive interview with EDGE Group CEO Hamad Al Marar revealed how the UAE-based defence group deployed its systems along the country’s shore border and established a geofence around the UAE within 48 hours of the February 28 escalation. Prior to joining Gulf News, Nivetha worked at ITP Media, where she helped launch Finance Middle East, a new publication covering the region’s financial sector. Her role spanned reporting and editing, video production, interviews and events. Across print, digital, and video, she focuses on finding the people behind business stories and explaining why those stories matter to the audience reading or watching them.

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