Ngurah Rai Airport Gets Additional Indian Route Airlines

The first landing of the IndiGo airline on the Bengaluru-Denpasar route at I Gusti Ngurah Rai Airport, Badung, Bali, Friday (29/3/2024). ANTARA/Ni Putu Putri Mulintari

BADUNG - I Gusti Ngurah Rai Airport, Bali, has again added connectivity with additional Indian routes.

General Manager of I Gusti Ngurah Rai Airport Handy Heryudhitiawan said that initially the route to and from India was only served by Vistara airline through New Delhi, but now there are additional IndiGo airlines through Bengaluru.

"Talks with Indigo Airlines have been going on since 2023, for that we express our appreciation to all parties involved for the realization of the first operational on the island of Bali," he said.

The first operation of the international airline began with the landing of the Airbus A320 aircraft from Bengaluru, India, at 9.30 WITA this morning.

With flight number 6E1605, the plane carried 183 passengers, then flew back from Denpasar to Bengaluru at 11.20 WITA carrying 162 people.

Handy said this route is scheduled to serve flights once a day, meaning users of air transportation services who want to leave or come from India have a new choice.

"We assess that India is an emerging market for the island of Bali, so we hope that the addition of this route will make it easier for Indian foreigners who will visit Bali," he said.

I Gusti Ngurah Rai Airport itself noted that until February 2024 alone as many as 67,979 Indian foreigners had come to Bali, the country was in the third highest position in its visit to Bali.

In position one there is still Australia with the arrival of 217,262 people, and the second position is China with 94,542 people.

The addition of connectivity in the midst of the high visit of Indian foreigners was also positively welcomed by the Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy.

Deputy for Strategic Policy at the Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy Dessy Ruhati said that throughout 2023 there have been 606,000 tourists from India visiting the country.

This year, the Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy raised their target to 679 visits, so that the opening of this new route is predicted to encourage better achievements.

"We continue to hope that the opening of direct flights will continue to increase the number of tourists coming to Indonesia, especially through Bali, because from Bali these tourists can also continue to 80 tourist destinations in Indonesia," said Dessy.