Gulf Air has begun moving its operation back toward Bahrain International Airport after the regional conflict forced the carrier to suspend flights and temporarily relocate to Saudi Arabia, according to the supplied Aerospace Global News report. The airline said scheduled services to and from Bahrain would resume gradually after Bahrain Civil Aviation Affairs confirmed that the kingdom's airspace had reopened.
The report says the crisis had pushed Gulf Air and Kuwait Airways to shift capacity across the border to Dammam, where Gulf Air was able to maintain only a limited schedule while Bahrain's airport was closed to all traffic. Bahrain's Civil Aviation Authority had imposed a ban on all flight operations, leaving the carrier with no practical option but to move. That change turned what is normally a home-hub airline operation into a cross-border workaround.
The disruption did not end with aircraft parking elsewhere. Gulf Air arranged a ground shuttle between Bahrain and Dammam for passengers, with pickups and drop-offs at the Bahrain International Exhibition and Convention Centre instead of the airport. The report says the drive takes around 1.5 hours and includes a Saudi transit visa in the ticket price. Even that arrangement was briefly interrupted when the King Fahd Causeway was shut after a security scare, before reopening later.
The return signs were visible in the air. After more than a month without incoming flights, Gulf Air flight GF9008, a Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner, landed in Bahrain from Dammam at 22:09 local time on Wednesday. On Thursday afternoon, the airline operated arrivals from Medina, Riyadh and Dammam into Bahrain on Airbus A320neo and A321neo aircraft. The carrier said its temporary operations through King Fahd International Airport in Dammam would also continue, suggesting the full transition back to Bahrain will take time.
Bahrain Airport Company also confirmed the gradual resumption and advised passengers to keep checking with their airlines. The airport's recovery matters because Bahrain International had been on a growth trajectory before the conflict. The report says it handled 9.74 million passengers in 2025, up 4.2% from 2024, and that its network reached 74 destinations, with recent additions including London Gatwick, Nairobi, New York, Bucharest, Ashgabat and Liege.
The picture in the source is therefore one of careful normalization, not an instant snap-back. Gulf Air is restoring its hub in stages, while keeping the Dammam fallback in place in case the security and airspace situation changes again.
