sammyg901

Thanks for the update! Bit strange to close off your bookings in the meantime (looking at the BA forum a chap bought a ticket to Calgary in the morning and they cancelled the flight in the afternoon!) but we shall see

I agree some kind of routing via or alternating with Bali would make a lot of sense

Sam Bee

Can I just add to support this that this is fairly normal for how GA do things. When they changed operating days, when they went from CGK-SIN-LHR to CGK-LHR, when they went LGW-AMS-CGK to LHR-CGK the airline was slow to update the schedules & the GDS's. Therefore i'm not taking this as definite until I see the flights are definitely cancelled, but just preparing my options. Don't forget that they went from a couple of indirect flights to Jakarta from Gatwick to 4 non-stop LHR flights (that had NO connectivity on the return) with about 3 weeks notice, and wonder why early loads were low.

However, with that in mind, I'll give them all the support I possibly can as they are a great airline, flying to an amazing country (by that I don't mean the UK ) and make my life easier, save me money, so fingers crossed it's just a minor blip... The downside is that I havn't flown SQ for a while!

siw

I fully agree with your statement which I've made bold.

mr_botak

Let's hope so - looking forward to trying out the 77W in J.

sammyg901

Seems like govt officials have been reading our thread and asked the question for us straight to the boss

https://bisnis.tempo.co/read/1095523...n-sejak-dibuka

So still under review for closure - let's hope a solution is found

clubeurope

I mean I would imagine Garuda having more opportunities to fill up their planes between CGK-LHR if they timed their flights to connect well with the Aussie flights. As of right now, only MEL-CGK-LHR would make a logical connection with their flight schedules. Furthermore, the transit procedures in Jakarta isn't exactly up to par, making it even more of a deterrent.

CGK's geographical position makes it hard for it to be a SEA gateway to Europe, and instead, if they were to focus more to the AUS-NZ market, I'd imagine these routes would be more profitable. And talking about Europe, the CGK-AMS route isn't even that profitable from what I've been hearing. It's all politics, really.

And anyways, the Europe to Jakarta market isn't even a big one, given how most European/Indonesian passengers would already give their business to SQ or the ME3. Many of the passengers on the KLM flight to Jakarta would disembark at the stop in KL.

Perhaps if Garuda added tag-on flights to places like Bali to these flights, they would be more advantageous to the average passenger.

I wish they would think this through more carefully.

plunet

Oh so there is a serious review underway. I have to agree that when I was looking at booking options, sensible connections through Jakarta seemed to just not exist. I suspect that part of the problem might be the slot timings at both LHR and AMS - to a certain extent they probably have to take what they can get and horsetrading slots is not cheap. I agree that getting some decent onward connections for hubs in SE Asia and onwards to AU and NZ really has to be part of their solution of they are to keep these routes going. As much as Indonesia is a destination in its own right, it has some way to go to catch up with some of its SE Asian neighbours in recognition that its is a destination. Pulling direct flights from major hubs in Europe definitely won't help.

sammyg901

Especially as the poster above said - the 77Ws are serious people moving machines vs something like a 787 - especially down the back, 100s of eco seats to fill multiple times a week without optimised onward connections in both directions is a hard ask - they are competing with countless other airlines on the kangaroo route and require double back to nearly all of SE Asia

Weigh that against the almost instatiable growing appetite for air travel in Asia - especially from markets like China where that same aircraft could do almost two turns a day and be packed to the gills no trouble - you can see why closing the route is a real possibility...

plunet

Found some more from an article written back in 2015 when the route to LHR was rumoured to be starting, and it seems that the runways at Jakarta cannot take the full weight of the 773 with a full load of passengers and cargo. Another commercial constraint - although I expect this applies equally to AMS as well as LHR. People at GA obviously knew this before the route started but perhaps the numbers didn't add up in practice.

https://www.routesonline.com/news/29...eathrow-slots/

siw

I think you are referring to my post at #15 . I just see that the B77W is too large an aircraft for the LHR and AMS routes; even if it is not full of passengers then I cannot imagine the cargo carrying capacity is the reason. I can only see the B77W being sensible for flights to China and Saudi Arabia due to capacity.

GA does have the A339 coming for Asia/Australia routes. Surely, the A350 and/or B787 now have to be purchased to make LHR and AMS flights sensible. After all VN have been doing this to LHR for about 3 years now and all their regional competition has them (SQ A359 inc. ULR soon & B78X, MH A359, TQ A359, B788, B789, VN A359 & B789)

A tag on to Bali would be good. Or directs 3 days a week to LHR-CGK and 4 days a week to LHR-DPS and both give onwards to Australia (it would have shorter hops between Asia and Austraila than from SIN/KUL/SGN etc.) and I think Indonesia is more popular for the UK populace as a Bali tourist stop than a business (or tourist!) CGK stop.

sammyg901

I looked at the Bali-Aus flights - the challenge is there isn't a connection possibility on the way back based on the current one per day schedule - if you wait for the inbound flights from Aus - you couldn't leave Denpasar until ~4pm which would get you in to Heathrow too late to turn back to Asia

walkingtall

My neighbour is a pilot for Garuda ( I live in Jakarta) we discussed the London route a few days ago , he thought it would not last long , due to poor yield as opposed to AMS which is much more popular , i am assuming the LHR slots are leased so they would not be cheap and honestly whilst flights from London are reasonable the pricing from Jakarta isn't that great, i have not used the flight in nearly a year , due to pricing from other airlines.

The Bali add on would be an idea, it would certainly create more of an appeal, Garuda as a whole seems very focused on the China market, they are adding more flights to second tier cities in China, Japan is also a very popular route.

Great Airline but sometimes with poor management

Sam Bee

I been told by a Garuda employee that the slots are not leased.They were sub-optimum timed and not that difficult to source, but the timings meant they couldn't get slots out of T4 - the Skyteam terminal.

It's really been an awfully planned operation with hardly any feed from any other routes. More planning and it could have been great, and if it does fail, it's the Management teams responsibility. We'll all have our own 2c - but I think they should have operate LHR-SIN-CGK-SIN-LHR with timed connecting flights in SIN for KNO/DPS/SUB and a few other destinations, thus keeping the non-stop to Jakarta management craved... Launching the route did apparently put BA from a planned relaunch to Jakarta (not sure if add on or direct was planned), but wonder if that would ever be on the cards again. KUL has been successful for them with a lot more competition.

plunet

Any more insight on this issue?

There seems to be an article on CAPA where the Google News search preview seems to infer that the Heathrow route has been cancelled but you need a login to be able to see the entire article.

https://centreforaviation.com/analys...ferrals-422442

Other thread commentators who noted that Garuda probably need to use the 777 to expand capacity on their China and Asia services seem to be in agreement with CAPA.

plunet

And another snippet - with the news in the past few days that all Indonesian Airlines now have safely clearance to fly to the EU, there's news circualting that GA hope to open a route to Paris.

Tahun Depan, Garuda Siap Terbang ke Paris

Translated by Google:
Intestingly, they do comment aty the end of the article on the load factors of the existing London and Amsterdam services