K

LM Royal Dutch Airlines has resumed a direct flight from Amsterdam to Bali starting Dec. 7 this year after the route was dropped in October 1997.

The first flight on the revived route, KL835, touched down at Ngurah Rai International Airport in Denpasar at 8:20 p.m. Monday evening, with 191 passengers and 14 crew on board the Boeing 777-300ER aircraft, said Dimiati, spokeswoman for airport operator PT Angkasa Pura I.

The 425-seat aircraft left for Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam an hour later, on route KL836, with a stopover in Singapore.

KLM's previous direct flight to Bali was on Oct. 15, 1997.

"Bali is a popular destination among Dutch and European holidaymakers," said KLM president and CEO Peter Hartman.

"This is a key factor that drives us to resume this flight."

KL835 departs from Schiphol every Tuesday, Friday and Sunday at 9 p.m. local time, arriving in Denpasar at 8:10 p.m. the next day.

The return KL836 departs from Bali every Monday, Wednesday and Saturday at 9:30 p.m. and arrives in Amsterdam early the next day at 8 a.m. Connections from Schiphol to various destinations across Europe and North America are available.

Hartman said the route had proved to be very popular.

"Therefore, we have decided to raise the frequency from three to four flights per week starting January 2010," he added.

The extra flight will be launched on Jan. 22, leaving Amsterdam on Saturday and departing from Bali on Sunday.

Together with its daily flight from Amsterdam to Jakarta, KLM also offers 10 flights a week connecting Indonesia and the Netherlands.

KLM has operated in Indonesia for the past 85 years. With the addition to its network of Bali, which becomes KLM's 61st long-distance destination, KLM now serves six routes to Southeast Asia.

Commenting on the resumption of KLM's route, I Gde Pitana, director general of overseas promotion at the Culture and Tourism Ministry, said the route would have a positive impact on tourism in the resort island.

"The direct flight will encourage more European tourists to come to Bali, because accessibility is the main issue in improving a destination," Pitana told The Jakarta Post.

He added Bali had great potential to attract European tourists, but was being held back by poor accessibility.

"Therefore we encourage more carriers to fly direct flights from Europe," he said.

The ministry says 540,828 tourists from Europe visited Bali between January and October this year. That number is an increase from 514,585 during the same period last year.