Garuda Indonesia Officials Join Melbourne-Bali Routes

Gruda Indonesia serves the Denpasar - Melbourne route (photo: Twitter @IndonesiaGaruda)

JAKARTA - The national airline Garuda Indonesia has started serving the direct flight route Melbourne - Bali pp which is operated using the Airbus A330-300 fleet with a frequency of once a week. Melbourne-Bali's first flight starts on Friday 9 December.

President Director of Garuda Indonesia, Irfan Setiaputra, said that the return to service of the Melbourne - Bali pp route complements international routes to and from Australia as one of the potential foreign tourist market share for Indonesia which will be optimized in the post-pandemic national economic recovery phase.

"In line with the Government's steps which are targeting an increase in the number of foreign tourists to Indonesia by 2023, it is hoped that the operation of the Melbourne - Bali flight route this time will be able to strengthen various strategic plans of the Government to develop sustainable tourism which has more value for the community's economy and is competitively superior as national tourism in the midst of various Southeast Asian tourism," said Irfan in an official statement, Saturday, December 10.

The Melbourne - Bali PP flight is served with flight number GA-719 from Melbourne International Airport which is available every Saturday which departs at 9.10 LT and arrives in Bali at 12.05 LT.

Meanwhile, Bali - Melbourne flights will operate every Friday with flight number GA-718 which will depart at 23.00 LT from I Gusti Ngurah Rai International Airport and arrive the next day at 07.35 LT.

Irfan said that his party is trying to take advantage of the momentum to recover the current national tourism situation to continuously support the growth of foreign tourist visits in Indonesia.

"We take advantage of it by accommodating the need for the availability of flight services that emphasize such services, direct flight accessibility, increasingly diverse departure schedule options, as well as various offers of other attractive services and facilities so that they can become a special attraction for the international market share to explore Indonesia more broadly," explained Irfan.

With the addition of the Indonesia-Australia route this time, Garuda Indonesia currently has 7 PP flights every week to Australia, namely through the Jakarta-Sydney pp (2x/week) route; Bali-Sydney pp (2x/week); Jakarta-Melbourne (2x/week); and Bali-Melbourne pp (1x/week).

"We will gradually implement the expansion of the Garuda Indonesia flight network, both domestic and international, as a form of optimism for the recovery of Garuda Indonesia's performance, especially in destinations with high flight traffic following the increasing market demand, with the aim of being able to contribute to the healthy Indonesian economy from the adaptive and competitive aspects of the tourism ecosystem," concluded Irfan.