Indonesia's First A380 Service with Emirates’ Bali Up-gauge

DALLAS — The world's largest A380 operator, Emirates Airlines (EK) will offer daily flights with the A380 to the popular Indonesian holiday island of Bali in the summer, setting a milestone in Indonesian aviation history.

The state airline of the Emirate of Dubai Emirates will operate a daily flight with the A380 to Bali from early June. This is intended to replace one of the two daily flights still carried out with a Boeing 777-300(ER). EK launched its non-stop service from Dubai to Bali in 2015, in addition to the flights that have been operated to Jakarta in Indonesia since 1992.

The airline has so far operated more than 49,000 flights and carried over 9 million passengers between Dubai and Indonesia. EK currently serves Indonesia with 28 flights per week to Bali and Jakarta and via the two hubs through its partners Garuda Indonesia (GA) and Batik Air (ID), the airline offers access to another 29 domestic cities.

It is the first scheduled A380 service to Indonesia in Indonesian aviation history. The airline’s debut A380 flight EK368 will depart from Dubai International Airport (DXB) at 03:25 hrs, arriving at Denpasar International Airport (DPS) at 16:35 hrs local time. The returning flight, EK369, will depart Bali at 19:40 hrs, arriving in Dubai at 00:45 hrs local time. The flight times will be about 9 hours.

Comment from Emirates' Chief Commercial Officer

Adnan Kazim, Chief Commercial Officer of Emirates, particularly emphasized the deployment of the world's largest passenger aircraft to Bali, saying, “The Emirates A380 is synonymous with our fly better promise and world-class products and services, and we’re excited to offer our travellers the opportunity to experience its uniqueness and unmatched beauty on flights to and from Bali. Needless to say that we’ve been working closely with our partners at Bali's Ngurah Rai International Airport to ensure our A380 operations will be seamless and smooth. We’d like to thank the authorities and our partners for all their support."

The EK official added, "Bali continues to be one of the most popular tourist destinations in our network and strategic markets in Southeast Asia, and the Emirates A380’s debut in Indonesia underscores our long-standing commitment to its travel and tourism sector. We look forward to driving more inbound traffic to the island, while also offering leisure and business travellers more opportunities to connect to Dubai and beyond to cities across Europe and the Americas through Emirates’ extensive global network.”

Featured imagE: Emirates A6-EUJ Airbus A380-861. Photo: Kochan Kleps/Airways