Bali's Ngurah Rai Airport Serves Direct Flights From India

The Airbus A321LR aircraft with flight number UK145 landed at the runway at I Gusti Ngurah Rai Airport, on Friday (1/12). (PHOTO of Public Relations I Gusti Ngurah Rai Airport Bali).

DENPASAR - Bali's I Gusti Ngurah Rai Airport managed by PT Angkasa Pura I (Persero) has started serving direct flights from India.

Ngurah Rai Airport for the first time serves the opening of flight routes or inaugural flights from Indian airlines formed by Tata Group and Singapore Airlines, Vistara on the Delhi-Bali-Delta route.

"We welcome you to Bali to Vistara. After a long time, finally today Bali is directly connected to India via the inaugural flight of the Vistara airline. The long-awaited flight route is finally officially operational today," said AP I President Director Faik Fahmi, Friday, December 1.

The opening of the flight route also records the history of India-Bali's connection via direct flights. Previously, the India-Bali route was only served via continued or indirect flights.

Inaugural flight Vistara used an Airbus A321LR flight with flight number UK145 and landed at the I Gusti Ngurah Rai Airport runway at 10.52 WITA after previously departing from Indira Gandhi Airport in Delhi, India at 01.12 local time. Quoted from the aviation manifest data, the flight carried 185 passengers.

AP I hopes that the opening of the flight route will have a very positive impact on tourism in Bali. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, in 2019 to be precise, tourists from India ranked third for the number of foreign tourist arrivals (tourists) in Bali, after foreign tourists from Australia and China.

"At that time there was no direct flight route from India to Bali, but only continued flights. With the opening of this direct flight route, we are optimistic that we will also boost the number of tourists from India in Bali," said Faik.

Quoted from data from the Ngurah Rai Immigration Office, Indian passport tourists ranked the third most served by I Gusti Ngurah Rai Airport in 2019, which was 377,543 people. This number covers 9 percent of the total foreign tourists who arrived in Bali via I Gusti Ngurah Rai Airport in 2019, which was 6,298,852 people.

Meanwhile, Vistara CEO Vinod Kannan said Bali is one of the most popular tourist destinations for tourists from India.

"We are very happy to be the only airline that currently serves the direct flight route between Delhi and Bali. With the close trade and cultural relationship between India and Indonesia, Bali is rapidly experiencing growth as a major destination for business people and for MICE (meeting, incentive, convention, and exhibition)," he said.

This Delhi-Bali-Delta direct flight is scheduled to operate every day. For the Delhi-Bali route, it is served with UK145 flights departing from Delhi at 00.30 local time and landing in Bali at 11.05 WITA.

Meanwhile, the reverse route is served with UK146 flights with departure time from Bali at 12.10 WITA and is scheduled to arrive in Delhi at 17.45 local time.

With the official operation of the Delhi-Bali-Delta route operated by Vistara, it also increased the number of international flight routes served by I Gusti Ngurah Rai Airport to 37 routes operated by 37 airlines.