Bahrain, Qatar's National Airlines To Resume Direct Flights After 6-Year Pause

National airlines of Qatar and Bahrain, Qatar Airways and Gulf Air, said on Wednesday that they will resume direct flights between the two countries on May 25 after a six-year pause due to a diplomatic conflict

DOHA (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 25th May, 2023) National airlines of Qatar and Bahrain, Qatar Airways and Gulf Air, said on Wednesday that they will resume direct flights between the two countries on May 25 after a six-year pause due to a diplomatic conflict.

According to the new schedule on the airlines' web sites, they intend to make one daily flight each, which is almost seven times less than they did before the conflict, when both companies made 93 flights per week in both directions.

The air route from Qatar to its neighboring Bahrain, which is an archipelago state, is only 148 kilometers (91.9 miles). The flight takes 45 minutes due to aircraft takeoff and landing maneuvers. After the resumption of direct flights, it will be the shortest route on Qatar Airways' schedule, and the second-shortest for Gulf Air after the one to Saudi Arabia's Dammam.

In June 2017, Bahrain joined several Persian Golf states in their transit blockade of Qatar, banning direct flights by Gulf Air to the country and closing its airspace to Qatari national airlines. Unlike Qatar's other neighbors, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, that resumed direct flights to Qatar right after the resumption of diplomatic ties with it in 2021, Manama repaired its relationship with Doha in the spring of 2023.

In early May, Qatar and Bahrain agreed to make steps to resume diplomatic and other ties amid recent political improvements in the region following an agreement on normalization of relations concluded between Saudi Arabia and Iran in March.