Indonesia national carrier Garuda Indonesia has terminated its service to Mumbai. This marks the end of the Indonesia connection to Mumbai after last few years of unsuccessful attempts by AirAsia X which operated one stop A330 services from Denpasar to Mumbai via Kuala Lumpur, Garuda Indonesia’s one stop service to Mumbai from Jakarta via Bangkok and later the non-stop A330 service between Denpasar and Mumbai.
Routes Online reported this morning about the service termination. The airline had reduced the frequency and intended to experiment with the all economy class A330 for the route, but nothing seems to have worked. The service to Denpasar barely lasted a year.
The airline started thrice a week services to Mumbai from Jakarta via Bangkok in December 2016, operating B737-800 aircraft. The airline had last operated to Mumbai in 1986. This service ended in March 2018.
The new flight comes on the backdrop of Indonesia AirAsiaX withdrawing its Bali – Kuala Lumpur – Mumbai service from 29th April 2018. This service helped connect Bali to Mumbai as well as connect Mumbai to the vast AirAsia network via Kuala Lumpur. Indonesia AirAsiaX marked the return of the group to Mumbai in May 2017, after a hiatus of five years, operating the 377 seater A330-300 on a daily basis.
India has been consistently attracting airlines and new connections but in recent times has suffered some set back with WOW air pulling out of Delhi within months of operations and eventual bankruptcy, Philippines Airlines pulling out even before the first flight and Air Italy pulling out of both Mumbai and Delhi within 6 months of operations.
Indonesia can be better connected from Delhi, as the traffic from Delhi to both Jakarta and Denpasar is highest from Delhi, followed by Mumbai. The only connection which India shares with Indonesia now is interestingly from Chennai to Medan via Kuala Lumpur on Batik Air – a part of Lion Air group.
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