Gulf Air today announced its best annual financial results since 2004, marking what the Bahrain-based carrier hopes will start a long march back to profitability. In 2014, the airline reduced its losses by almost 33 percent from BHD 93.3 million ($245.38 million) to BHD 62.7 million ($164.9 million).

Last year, Gulf Air continued its strategy of focusing on higher-yield, point-to-point services, mainly across the Middle East and North Africa, rather than trying to combat the strong hub positions established by rivals Etihad Airways in Abu Dhabi and Emirates Airline in Dubai. For 2014, it achieved 15.4 percent growth in revenue passengers, having launched six new routes in the Middle East, Europe and the Indian subcontinent to expand its network to 41 destinations. It also achieved average annual on-time performance of 89 percent.

Gulf Air’s management views the improved results as vindication of its most recent restructuring in 2013. Ten years has passed since Abu Dhabi destabilized the carrier by withdrawing from the joint venture with the governments of Bahrain and Oman to form Etihad in September 2005. A year later, Etihad lured CEO James Hogan away from Gulf Air, triggering top-level management changes and a major corporate restructuring in April 2007.

“We are moving strategically forward, making changes to Bahrain’s national carrier that are not only positive in the short term but that form part of our greater long-term strategy toward transforming the airline across many fronts,” commented Gulf Air acting CEO Maher Salman Al Musallam. “Reducing our budget requirement doesn’t just involve cutting costs and saving money; it involves a strategic 360 [degree] assessment of our business that includes looking into how we can best nurture and develop our operations, technical capabilities, network, fleet, product, workforce, customers and more. We are working toward all of this and I am delighted with our progress.”

The airline’s fleet currently consists of 16 Airbus A320-200s, six A321-200s and six A330-200s. It has 16 A320neos on order, along with 16 Boeing 787-8s and 10 Bombardier CSeries CS100s.