Air Transport

Singapore Airlines (SIA) is increasing services in August to the Indonesian resort island of Bali thanks to a new agreement signed with Garuda Indonesia that will see the Indonesian carrier codesharing on SIA’s additional services to the island.

An SIA spokesman in Singapore says on 1 August SIA will be increasing its Singapore-Denpasar Bali service to four flights a day from three.

SIA operates on the route using Boeing 777-200s, according to Innovata, which also shows Garuda has 11 flights per week using Boeing 737-400s.

The spokesman says SIA can increase services on the route because it will be using some of Garuda’s traffic rights and Garuda will be placing its code on the additional seven flights per week.

A Garuda spokesman in Jakarta says even though Garuda will soon be placing its code on some SIA flights on the route it will “maintain the existing flights”.

He also says under the new agreement SIA in future will place its code on some of Garuda’s domestic flights but he was unable to provide details on this.

Another aspect of the agreement is that SIA will help to sell tickets on Garuda’s international flights that go via Singapore and Garuda will help sell tickets on SIA international flights to destinations in Asia, Europe and elsewhere.

The carriers can profit from this because the spokesman says each will get special rates on the other’s flights.

Garuda’s fleet largely consists of short-haul aircraft that are mostly used on domestic routes so in recent years the airline has been looking to expand its international reach by co-operating with foreign carriers such as SIA and Malaysia Airlines.

Garuda says in a statement on its website Garuda president, Emirsyah Satar, and SIA CEO, Chew Choon Seng, signed the agreement in signed the agreement on 20 June.

Source: flightglobal.com's sister premium news site Air Transport Intelligence news