I’ve heard good reviews of Gulf Air, and decided to try it out for myself on this Christmas trip home. My journey was broken in Bahrain by two flights, and hence I had two vastly different experiences. Checking in at Heathrow was a nightmare, with the longest queue to I’ve ever seen. A woman in exhasperation was trying to upgrade to business class to use the fasttrack lane, while I was mourning the loss of duty free shopping time. Anyway they seem to be punctual, but take a long time to do anything. For eg, they start announcing the depature well before the boarding time. Also, the flight attendants to Bahrain were beautiful but not very well trained. They seemed to be fighting amonst themselves too. The sound on the headphones went off during the flight, leaving no inflight entertainment. By contrast, the second half of the trip had great airhostesses, and was spacious too. The food on the flight was pretty good. Its all meat, so if you’re vegetarian, be sure to specify before booking your flight. Economy class tickets are changeable for a fee of 50 pounds, for some flexibility.