Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
I SEE the MPs are hard at work again, with disastrous results. But for once I have to admit; this time I can see where they're coming from ... well sort of. The heart is in the right place but the actions leave more than a little to be desired!
There's a proposal through for alcohol sales to be banned on Gulf Air and it looks like it's actually going to happen. Now I'm not going to say I agree with the proposal but at the end of the day, they do make a good point; this is a Muslim country and it's their right to have an alcohol free national airline.
The problem is, the MPs are also complaining about the management of Gulf Air and the money that's being spent on their wages, saying: "Thousands of dinars go into president and chief executive Bjorn Naf's pockets and those of other key officials every months (in salaries), rather than being spent on the airline's growth, whether through training and educating Bahrainis, or developing services". Again, a good point except for the 'or developing services' part.
While banning alcohol is their right, it's tantamount to removing a service. People who drink alcohol like to be able to do so when they're flying as much as they do at any other time.
For some it takes the edge of their nerves of flying, for others it's something to do while they're stuck up in a metal container for several hours with little else to do. While excessive drinking on a plane should never be advised, there is an argument that says allowing passengers a reasonable amount of alcohol, will help keep them calm and even in some cases, help put them to sleep, which in turn will contribute to a calmer flight for all involved.
But what ever the reason, you chose to come up with for allowing alcohol on flight, the simple fact of the matter is that if you ban it, passengers that do want to be able to have a drink while they're flying will simply decamp to another airline, even if they have to pay a little more for the privileged.
It's not like banning smoking on planes, which once started, quickly spread to all airlines, therefore leaving smokers with no choice but to either stub out or stay put. While Gulf Air may follow in the footsteps of Kuwait Airways, Saudia and a few others in the region, it's very unlikely that other airlines like British Airways, Air France, KLM and many more ever will so if a drinker is faced with a seven hour flight somewhere, they will simply book themselves onto an airline that they know they can get a drink on. Gulf Air will remain true to the values of their beliefs but will lose customers in the process.
People want what they want and in a world that's developing the way ours is, freedom of choice is the only viable way forward on a global scale and if Gulf Air takes away a person's freedom to choose, they have no chance of succeeding in their recovery strategy.
While I can see that the MPs are trying to do their bit to uphold what they believe in, surely their time could be better spent on life and death matters such as the SMC's ICU bed crisis that has recently claimed five lives already.
It seems unconscionable to spend time complaining about something like alcohol - which people have the freedom to choose not to consume - when people are dying for no other reason than the fact that they don't have enough beds to put them in.
I could be wrong but I would like to think that preventing people from dying unnecessarily should take priority over restricting what they choose to do on an aeroplane.
