Vistara – the JV of Tata and SIA which will merge with Air India next year, is not holding back its expansion. The airline announced the launch of its flights to Denpasar (Bali), Indonesia from Delhi. The flights will start from Dec 01, 2023 and will see the deployment of A321LR on the route. WIth Hong Kong starting in Winter schedule, this addition sees three out of four A321LRs being utilised by the airline, leaving room for one more longish flight. Will it be Mumbai – Hong Kong, Mumbai – Bali or Delhi – Mauritius?
The flights to Bali would operate Daily at below timings
UK145 DEL 0030-1105 DPS
UK146 DPS 1210-1745 DEL
India – Indonesia connectivity has seen many ups and downs, with the recent one being a quick pull out by Batik Air from Chennai where it relaunched flights from Medam. However, the airline continues to operate to Chennai from Jakarta via Kuala Lumpur, serving the Kuala Lumpur – Chennai sector where its Malaysian subsidiary does not have rights to fly as they are exhausted.
Garuda Indonesia operated non-stop flights to Mumbai from Denpasar between the second half of 2018 and April 2019. The service barely lasted a year. The airline deployed the A330 on the route and possibly the route economics did not work out, which it would favourably for the A321LR. Before experimenting with the Bali – Mumbai service, Garuda Indonesia operated to Mumbai from Jakarta via Bangkok, deploying the B737-800 NG on the route.
This was following a sudden spurt in connections between India and Indonesia, all of which remained short lived – starting with Indonesia AirAsia X operating to Mumbai from Denpasar via Kuala Lumpur.
Garuda Indonesia averaged less than 150 passengers per flight while Indonesia AirAsia X averaged around 300 passengers per flight. The A330s of Indonesia AirAsia X were configured with 377 seats, but they had a one-stop operation which put them at par with any carrier.
Network Thoughts
For students of network planning and learning airline operations, these timings give a glimpse of how connectivity works. The 0030 departure ex-Delhi, helps connect destinations from India to Bali via Delhi. The flight is aligned well with check-in / check-out timings at Bali, a tourist destination and the return is well timed to connect to the last departure bank to major cities from Delhi.
The aircraft can be swapped with the Delhi – Hong Kong – Delhi flights, almost each day – helping balance the utilisation since the Hong Kong flights are of shorter duration.
Denpasar is a brilliant addition to the airlines’ network after Mauritius. India is the third source market for Bali, as has been seen in various surveys and a direct connectivity will do wonders to that. The flights to Bali will see one more addition in the list of flights and airlines which are skipping the hubs at Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore. The Malaysian carriers are already eyeing Tier II cities in India to increase their feed after Indian and Vietnamese carriers started stretching their network, the addition of Bali will possibly lead to a fare war with the carriers based at Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore dropping fares to remain competitive.
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Amazing analysis as always
Amazing analysis as always