GARUDA Indonesia yesterday launched thrice-weekly Denpasar-Beijing flights and will be introducing chartered services to various Chinese cities in February.
The new Denpasar-Beijing services run every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday via Airbus 330-200 aircraft with 222 seats in two classes.
They are intended to improve accessibility between Bali and China, apart from strengthening the airline’s Asia-Pacific network, according to Garuda Indonesia president and CEO, Arif Wibowo.
“With its potential 100 million travellers, China is one of the very important markets for Garuda, a focus of development for the airline,” he said.
Garuda will also increase capacity between the two countries with chartered services from some Chinese cities to Bali and Manado, starting from this coming Chinese New Year in February to July.
The Chinese cities are Chengdu, Chongqing, Ningbo, Kunming, Junan, Harbin, Xi’an, Shenyang, Chengzhou. Arif explained that opening chartered services to China is part of Garuda’s short-term, quick-win programmes to generate revenue.
Indonesia minister of tourism, Arief Yahya, said: “The opening of the services will boost traffic between China and Indonesia, particularly Bali.
“At the same time it will also help to introduce destinations beyond Bali, such as Lombok and Manado.”
