Indonesia has decided to continue its ban on foreign budget airlines in order to the national carrier, Garuda Indonesia. Garuda serves a wide selection of International destinations including London, but its the short range market it the government is trying to protect.
When I fly to Singapore, Garuda is alway the cheapest choice. Singapore has its own national carrier, Singapore Airlines, which is $100 more expense for the same trip. Singapore also has budget airlines including Valuair, which would love to get into that market.
The pressure is on Garuda for sure, and it might end up being partially owned by another airline. Merpati, one of the domestic airlines here has just gone belly-up. The airline business is high stakes gambling. Garuda is planning to ask Malaysian Airlines to cease their flights to Jakarta, due to economic reasons.
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Check the link.. Airlines going in there before the 2005 ban are ok.
Not surprising they want to keep efficient airlines like Jetstar Asia out as GA could never compete.
GA have not had a service to London for a number of years. In fact I don’t think they fly into Europe anymore; so much for a national carrier.
Here’s Garuda’s destination map. I flew with them from London to Bali in 2003. Don’t know which of theirroutes are still working. You would imagine their official website would know.
The routes shown into Europe on their map are code sharing arrangements. Other airlines do the flights on those routes.
See the comments of Jan in :
http://www.baliblog.com/05-06/garuda-indonesias-national-carrier.html
for further clarification.
Shame because I always enjoyed the excitement with GA. I was glad to hear though that (at that stage) they did their heavy duty services in Germany.
What about Air Asia? I think they ‘re Malaysian and I got a cheap deal from them from Denpasar to Bangkok for February 8th. Hope they’re still flying!
They should be the cheapest choice for Singapore as well, if they go that route. Otherwise it may pay to change in Jakarta.
Cheers,
Whalewatcher