Bali’s Airport to Prioritize International Flights to Boost Foreign Tourist Arrivals

By Office of Assistant to Deputy Cabinet Secretary for State Documents & Translation     Date 27 Juli 2019
Category: News
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Bandara-Ngurah-RaiIn a bid to boost the number of foreign tourist arrivals to the resort island of Bali, the island’s I Gusti Ngurah Rai International Airport will make international flights a priority for take-off and landing.

“Such measure will be in place during ‘golden time’ from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. for international flights,” Minister of Transportation Budi Karya Sumadi said on Friday (26/7).

According to Budi, the move comes as a follow-up to President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s directives to boost the number of tourists visiting the island and to improve facilities at the airport.

Budi added that the ministry will also add flight slots for international routes at the airport and limit the ground time no more than three hours. “We hope to increase the capacity of I Gusti Ngurah Rai International Airport by 30%,” he said.

Budi went on to say that there would also be restrictions on flights with ATR-72 aircraft at Bali’s airport.  “We will create a cluster system in which planes from small cities will not land in Bali, except for those cities that are only reached by ATR-72 aircraft,” Budi said.

For the record, nine foreign airlines from Japan, Taipei, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Australia, Singapore, Abu Dhabi, and Malaysia have announced plans to open new direct flights to Bali.

“The average number of passengers from these nine flights is 200-300 passengers per flight, so there will be an additional 2000 people every day. Therefore, I ask all relevant parties to cooperate to smooth the process,” Budi said.

To date, there are 34 foreign airlines with 47 flight routes serving at I Gusti Ngurah Rai International Airport. As for domestic flights, there are currently eight domestic airlines with 22 flight routes.

I Gusti Ngurah Rai International Airport is the second busiest airport in Indonesia after Soekarno–Hatta International Airport. In 2018, the airport served 23,779,178 passengers. (Ministry of Transportation PR/ES)

Translated by: Muhardi

Edited by: M. Ersan Pamungkas

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