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Jakarta Post

Batik Air opens Indonesia – India route

Batik Air, a subsidiary airline of Lion Air, will have two daily flights that fly to three cities in India: Chennai, Delhi and Mumbai.

News Desk (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Sun, June 25, 2017

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Batik Air opens Indonesia – India route Some 5,000 years on archaeologists believe the ruins could unlock the secrets of the Indus Valley people, who flourished around 3,000 BC in what is now India and Pakistan before mysteriously disappearing. (AFP/Asif Hassan)

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eginning in July this year, Batik Air, a subsidiary of Lion Air, will have two new daily flights that fly to three cities in India: Chennai, Delhi and Mumbai. For these flights, passengers will be transported on an Airbus A320 fleet departing from Ngurah Rai International Airport in Bali to India.

“[The route opening] is already in the finalization stage. It will [start operating] around July. We’ve already received [flight] slots in India, Malaysia and Australia,” said Batik Air president director Achmad Luthfie.

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“The economies in both countries keep growing. Moreover, these two countries have the biggest populations in the world. In India, there are about 200 million people who are in the upper-middle class group who have traveled overseas. This is where the market potential lies,” he added.

Currently, Batik Air has 37 planes, but by the end of this year, the airline plans to have 41. The total number of flights that Batik Air has on a daily basis has reached 209 with the airline’s on-time performance at 95 percent.

Batik Air's decision to open a new flight route is in line with the Tourism Ministry's focus on its National Coordination Meeting: Air Connectivity. To achieve the target of 15 million international tourists, the meeting concluded that air connectivity must be increased.

Tourism Minister Arief Yahya said, "Without air connectivity, the digital aspects of tourism and the implementation of homestays will not be successful. It's a way to get international tourists to come to our country."

Read also: World’s best country for travel announced

Yahya also mentioned that the ministry facilitating new routes and making traffic rights avail, which also come with incentive programs, are supported by all airlines. The program is believed to motivate airlines to open new routes, add seats, or flight frequency in the effort to increase the number of tourists to Indonesia.

"We believe that if everything relating to connectivity can happen, then the Tourism Ministry's international tourist target of 15 million in 2017 and 20 million in 2019 will be achieved. The aviation industry is the biggest gate [into our country], 75 percent, compared to other gates," he added. (asw)



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