Gulf Air cabin crew rated 'excellent' for second consecutive year

The independent survey, carried out by the global airline industry’s governing body IATA, covered close to 20,000 passengers over a one year period.   

The survey assessed passengers’ satisfaction on various aspects of their travel experience such as booking tickets, aircraft cleanliness, attitude and friendliness of cabin staff, efficiency of check-in and boarding, grooming and appearance of cabin staff, handling of delays and cancellations, in-flight entertainment selection, and many other factors that affect the overall customer travel experience.  

Gulf Air chief executive officer, Samer Majali,   said: “The 2010 results are encouraging and a reflection of the host of improvements that we made last year both operationally and in terms of our fleet. Most significantly our on-time performance improved by 7% from 65% to 72% and our fleet became one of the youngest in the region with the arrival of 10 new aircraft and the phasing out of 10 older planes. Currently 40% of our fleet is brand new with an average age of 6.4 years.”   

Gulf Air’s overall satisfaction rating increased in 2010 versus 2009; individual service evaluations for the airline were also positive with the check-in experience rating increasing from good to very good, and the food and beverage rating recording a marginal increase.  

An improvement was also recorded in the category, ‘overall in-flight entertainment’, previously identified as an area for development. This is the result of the airline’s introduction of the new state-of-the-art portable in-flight entertainment (IFE) system for premium passengers during the last quarter of 2009. IFE will be further enhanced with the retrofit of the airline’s A320 fleet, which includes the installation of individual IFE systems in all seats.  

The survey also revealed that the most important factor for passengers in selecting Gulf Air was the convenient flight departure and arrival times, a key focus of the airline’s strategy.