Bahrain’s national carrier Gulf Air has signed a contract with the Saudi Arabian subsidiary of Switzerland-based Swissport International for the provision of ground-handling services for the airline at Saudi Arabia’s three largest international airports.

Swissport Saudi Arabia will be operating Gulf Air’s ground-handling services at King Khaled International in Riyadh, King Abdulaziz International in Jeddah and King Fahd International in Dammam.

Swissport International has brought in a sizeable number of ground support equipment and recruited an additional 250 experienced aviation staff, Gulf Air and Swissport said in a joint statement.

“A key feature of the collaboration with Gulf Air will be a high degree of customer focus and innovation that we intend to bring to the operation,” Thomas Bommer, Swissport Saudi Arabia CEO, said. The executive added that he sees great potential to expand the partnership in future.

State-owned Gulf Air currently maintains a fleet of 28 narrow-body and wide-body Airbus planes, with some 45 on order both from France’s Airbus and the US’ Boeing.

The airline has recorded heavy losses in recent years, but a decision by the government to restructure its operations has helped reduce its debt from $520m in 2012, when the restructuring began, to $64m in 2015.