Emirates To Begin Flying Between Bali And Auckland

The 40,500 people who travel between Bali and NZ in a year might be an underrepresented figure becuase it hasn't historically been easy to get to Bali from NZ. Either a one-stop routing via Aussie (with the only airline providing through connections being VA), or the seasonal Air NZ service that only operates like twice a week with a creaky old 767. I suspect demand might shoot up significantly.

Why would Kiwis go to Bali when Fiji, Cook Islands, Tahiti and other South Pacific paradises are closer?

@Alex and cleaner, too. But I suspect it's because Bali is cheaper, and offers more than just beaches? So you practically have more options. It's also a good stopover point for if you want to visit neighbouring islands. Komodo, for example

Lucky, EK have an interesting history with AKL. Until recently they have 4 A380 flights per day leaving from AKL which were all on the ground at the same time making for quite a sight at a relatively small airport. One of these flights went direct to DXB (as it still does) and the other 3 went via MEL, SYD, and BNE (and then onto DXB). There were a number of reasons why they operated like this, primarily I understand because EKs Australian schedule would have had these planes sitting on the ground in Australia for 12 hours each day meaning expensive parking fees, and there was enough cargo demand to operate these tag flights, even if they weren’t full of passengers. When EK recently decided to terminate the 3 x tag-flights I believe they gave some sort of reason about ‘deploying the A380s to other routes with more demand’ which is hard to believe given they send A380s wherever they want, seemingly on a whim.
I’m not sure there’s a huge amount of one-stop demand to AKL from DXB (one of the reasons the tags were cancelled while the direct flights continues to do very well) especially as the close relationship between QF and EK already provides for a wealth of one-stop options, but I believe it may be more about the underserved market from AKL to DPS. Bali is one of the most popular holiday destinations for Australians so should be similar for New Zealanders. While the Pacific Islands are closer and easier to get to, they’re much more expensive to visit so I can see the appeal of Bali as a destination. I’m not sure there would be much demand for F class on a low-rent leisure destination like this, I would have thought it would be a perfect route for a 2-class 77W.

Bali is the hookup capital. A buffett every night of all cuisines.

This will also help their cargo capacity- a fully laden A380 can't move much whereas a 777 on two shorter legs will provide plenty of lift

They can also put the EK code on any useful Jetstar connections either end as they do in Singapore to provide some feed

@Lucky -- That Dubai–Sydney–Christchurch route you mentioned... Isn't that Dubai–Bangkok–Sydney–Christchurch, or have they changed it?

I could see this route being popular, dxb to akl is too long for some people, especially those flying in economy. The stopover does provide a much needed rest for passengers.

Any idea when they'll load this into the schedule? Looking forward to finding out how many EK miles this one will take

@Malc no they changed the his route when it became an A380 to CHC-SYD-DXB

@Malc - it used to be that be the milk run DXB BKK SYD CHC, now it is

DXB SYD
DXB BKK SYD
DXB SYD CHC

@Malc. Lucky is correct, it is DXB-SYD-CHC. The BKK tag was dropped when the CHC route went A380.

@Alex -- Okay, thanks. I hadn't realised that.

There aren't enough people in New Zealand to support this route daily for a 777 and, with the ridiculous layover in both directions, it doesn't make much sense to take this path to Dubai. More EK stupidity.

It could be a good option for a stopover from NZ to Europe stopping for a couple of nights in Bali as opposed to Dubai with EK or one of the SEA cities on their carriers, plus with the Qantas venture Australians going to Europe could fly Jetstar or Qantas to Bali, stopover and continue on to Europe via DXB on EK. More options can't be a bad thing.

I have this funny feeling where the protectionist instincts of the current Indonesian government will kick in, and Emirates will be kicked out. They might, for example, lose one of their 3 daily CGK flights, or have to lose DPS-AKL altogether. Watch as they say that it's because the runway, or any other factor, at DPS can't support EK's operations

@Lucky,
they also fly BNE-AKL if I'm not mistaken. https://www.emirates.com/de/german/flying/our_fleet/emirates_a380/emirates_schedule/brisbane-auckland.aspx (yeah, that's the link in German - but you speak German 😉 )