Garuda Indonesia Launches Beijing-Djakarta Direct Flight

To meet the ever increasing market demand, Garuda Indonesia will launch a direct route between Beijing and Djakarta on January 13, 2010.

The non-stop route will reduce the journey time for passengers flying from Beijing to destinations such as Bali, Yogyakarta, and Lombok. Prior to the launch of the new route, passengers from China often need to transfer in Singapore where they had to stay for up to six hours before they could fly on to Bali.

The route will be operated using Airbus A220-200 aircraft, the interiors of which have specially designed with Chinese elements such as the Chinese Red color and the big Chinese character for "Blessing" to appeal to Chinese tourists. The aircraft is configured with 222 seats, including 36 seats in the business class cabin and 186 seats in the economy class cabin.

Garuda Indonesia says it will hire more Chinese flight attendants in 2010 to provide Chinese language services to passengers from China.

Sentota Mujiono, the general manager of Garuda Indonesia China Region, stated that the number of Chinese tourists visiting Indonesia is increasing by 20% a year, and therefore Garuda will keep on increasing the number flights between China and Indonesia. He added that they will also provide a brand new service to enable Chinese tourists to better explore and experience the charm of Indonesia so more of them will choose to fly with the airline.

For the China market, the airline currently runs flights to Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Hong Kong, and Taiwan.