State owned Bahraini Airline Gulf Air plans to alter its order book from a wide-body fleet to a narrow-body, focusing on a regional network of jets, according to the airline’s chief executive.

Gulf Air has up to 20 Boeing 787s on order, in addition to 15 Airbus A320s and 20 A330 wide body aircraft.

CEO Samer Majali, who joined the airline three months ago, said that the airline intends to cancel 15 routes and open 20 new ones as part of a new strategy to increase traffic in the Middle East.

He went on to say that is exactly what the airline will be discussing with Airbus in particular, in view of the fact that they had been also going to expand Gulf Air’s narrow body order beyond the 15 that they have already asked for.

Majali went on to say that the airline also plans to lease a number of regional jets for 2010, while deciding ver the next couple of months from which manufacturer to purchase jets.

The airline plans to close routes to Shanghai, Hyderabad and Bangalore, while selling five of its Airbus A340 wide-body aircraft.

The airline was established as a regional airline however has struggled to find its niche after previous shareholders Oman, Abu Dhabi and Qatar gave up their holdings.  Gulf Air expects to make a loss of USD$510 million this year.

The airline is now perched between regional low-cost airlines such as Air Arabia and Bahrain Air, and state-owned airlines of rich oil producing nations with large fleet expansion plans, while Bahrain could not afford to plough funds into its state-owned companies.