Ngurah Rai Airport Starts Adding Domestic Flights To Makassar Route

DENPASAR - I Gusti Ngurah Rai Airport, Bali, added flights to domestic routes earlier this year with the first additional flights starting by Batik airline on the Makassar route.

"Now at the beginning of the year, airport managers received additional flight frequency from and to Makassar using Batik Air airlines that fly directly every day," said General Manager of PT Angkasa Pura I I Gusti Ngurah Rai Airport Handy Heryudhitiawan, Friday, January 12.

He said this domestic route is one of the busiest routes in December 2023, where Makassar is in third position with 48,879 passengers, this figure is below the Jakarta route with 486,080 passengers and Surabaya 142,781 passengers.

With the addition of airlines serving direct flights in early 2024, Handy welcomes and supports his operations.

This means that currently I Gusti Ngurah Rai Airport has served 20 domestic routes through 11 airlines, and apart from the Makassar route, it is planned that in January there will be additional new routes to Lampung and additional flight frequencies for the Balikpapan route.

Meanwhile, the international routes served are 36 routes with 37 airlines. I Gusti Ngurah Rai Airport estimates it can serve 23.6 million passengers in 2024," said Handy.

Throughout 2023, airports located in the south of the Island of the Gods have served 21.4 million passengers, an increase of 71 percent compared to 2022.

Terkait tambahan penerbangan langsung rute Makassar ini mulai beroperasi sejak Kamis (11/1) dengan jadwal keberangan dari Makassar-Bali pukul 05.50 Wita dan kembali dari Bali-Makassar pukul 19.15 Wita.

Handy hopes that the additional frequency that connects the islands of Bali and Sulawesi is expected to complement the needs of the community with various choices of departure hours from several transport companies or airlines.

In addition to Batik, the same route is first served by Garuda Indonesia, Citilink Indonesia, Lion Air, and Sriwijaya Air.

"This means that the demand for service users is quite high, which will also increase the number of traffic records we serve this year," he said.

This year, Ngurah Rai Airport admits that it will continue to support airlines that want to open inaugural flights or reactivate flights, as well as encourage airlines to be able to take advantage of the available flight slots.