Garuda Indonesia A330neo Spends 4.5 Hours In Holding Pattern Over India

Not a ringing endorsement of their flight planning system.

They smelled the food and were hungry .

They "planned" it o.k. , but their "execution" was wanting .

Meanwhile , all were overjoyed to be out of Saudi , and all were saddened to be going to Indonesia .

I guess Garuda crews don't "time out." Probably a stunt by Airbus to show range of the a330neo.

Given fuel acquisition problems are more severe in some parts of the world than other parts, airlines have to assess whether to fill up more than usual at their destination than at home. In this case, it worked out for Garuda from an ability to stay in the air longer to avoid India’s missile testing exercise, but it cost Garuda the fuel it brought in to try to somewhat reduce its fuel bill if needing to fill up as much in East Asia.

Judging from its flight number, perhaps this is an empty flight after carrying Hajj passenger from CGK to JED then return to CGK to pick another Hajj passenger, must be pretty insane for the crew to been hold for that long despite no passenger inside that flight l.

This isn’t Hajj season yet for this year. Umrah is basically year-round but those flights from JED to CGK get filled up anyway between pilgrims and migrant labor.

It seems to be an extra indeed. Didn’t realize the “Hajj” flights started so early:

https://www.arabnews.com/node/2642634/pakistan

Would have been much easier to just land in Chennai and wait out the delay. Somewhere, somehow, communications broke down.

This was likely one of the Haji flights Garuda is currently operating - if you check "live" Garuda flights on Flightradar, you can see that there's a massive amount of widebodies Garuda currently operates from different cities (Makassar, Solo, Padang, etc.) in Indonesia via Medan to Medina & Jeddah. Very fascinating to follow!

India issued a NOTAM designating a vast stretch of the Bay of Bengal as a danger zone for a long-range missile test, with the warning active from April 25 to May 6, 2026. It was then extended to May 6-9. The NOTAM covered a corridor extending up to approximately 3,550 km, signaling preparations for an intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) launch.

Why couldn't the jet head South over Sri Lanka, then over down to Sumatra, and back up to Medan?

Wow, your a moron.. must be American
Clearly you haven't traveled

"your" - lol

For Indonesian with huge amount of people conduct Hajj, we already started Hajj flight to MED or JED since April 22nd, this year GA and SV who assigned for this mammoth task (albeit most of the aircraft were wet-leased from several charter airlines). The first phase started since April 22nd to May 7th sending Hajj pilgrim to MED first, the second phase after May 7th were straight to JED.

It's already started pretty early for Indonesian since so much people conduct Hajj and it already started since April 22nd. These flights came from CGK/SUB/KJT/BDJ/YIA/SOC/UPG/PLM/PDG/KNO/BTH/BTJ to MED (until 7th May) and JED (start 8th May). These flights usually empty when come back to Indonesia.

The no fly zone extended 3600 km south, well pass Sri Lanka. These are consistent with the testing of an intercontinental ballistic missile or a hyperglide vehicle, although the Indian defence forces are being tight lipped. This is not an IRBM as someone mentioned earlier.