Garuda Indonesia Orders Rare A330-800neo

I think Garuda will fly to Los Angeles and San Francisco, considering there are many Indonesian diasporas, maybe 3x per week will be effective please garuda improve ife system to make it responsive

With only 4 on order, if indeed used on ultra long haul, the options will be limited. LHR-DPS is 16 h or a 36 hour rotation including 2 h turnaround at both ends. Considering provision for 1 unavailable plane (maintenance etc.), that leaves room for max ~14 ULR rotations per week. That's 2 flights per day. If the airline wants to offer some flexibility, they will serve each market at least 2x per week. So they can open max 7 markets. LAX, SFO with Delta make sense to absorb the US leisure and diaspora businesses, and for the european destinations, the best is to compete with the other alliances and offer competitive OD flights from big population centers that can fill up the plane like LHR/GTW, FRA/MUC while leveraging a Skyteam partnership through France or Netherlands for the other markets. Add to that a constraint to serve both DPS and CGK, which gives flexibility to adjust to demand seasonality and the capacity is pretty much used up.

I think A330-800 is definitely suitable for Garuda due to better range performance, right sized capacity and operational capability which can be used both for long haul and short haul (domestic). Majority of Indonesian secondary airports these days might have sufficient length to accept widebody aircraft such as the A330 families, but the limitation or challenges were in the ARFF (Rescue Firefighting) category which are mainly in the region of category 7 and 8. Given the differences on ARFF Category (8 for A330-200/800 and 9 for A330-300/900) therefore, this aircraft should help the airline to develop its seats capacity, or else making their domestic flight schedules more effective and efficient by deploying widebody aircraft for busy domestic and regional routes and particularly during peak hours. The Indonesian government now has officially established a tourism holding that aims to strengthen tourism and aviation sectors through collaboration in the long term. It has identified the needs to overcome the existing issues, such as unbalanced traffic, non optimal international connectivity, as currently the domestic and international traffic are only centralised in CGK, DPS and SUB, and the fact that there were more than 23 million overflying passengers from Europe, North Asia to Australia in 2019 of which majority transiting in Singapore and Hong Kong ; with the recent airport development happening in Central and East Indonesia, this could be one potential that can be further developed in the future. One of its long term aspirations is to develop connectivity beyond Jakarta and Bali, and following the massive airport development and expansion projects in Central and East Indonesia; the long term aspiration is making other potential secondary airports which are currently known to be underserved such as: Yogyakarta (YIA) as a new alternative for International transit hub. With the new YIA airport and larger capacity will help to promote this second most popular destination after Bali in Indonesia. In addition, Indonesia should consider maximising its hub and spoke strategy for domestic (especially for non busy routes), which I think is also still relevant for Indonesia given that the country's geographical condition much likely unique and different than other countries; As a maritime country with 17,000 islands and that aviation is highly relied on by its people (not land or sea transport) and reiterating the ultimate needs for secondary cities to be served with air connectivity for tourism, trade and logistics distribution. Agree with the previous comment, that the US flights will be workable for Garuda, given the number of Indonesian diasporas in the West Coast, such as LAX and SFO. Let's accepting the fact that Indonesian diasporas are not as wide spread as others, compare to Vietnam, China or even the Philippines. Therefore, GA must focus on identifying this potential which currently reaped by its competitors. I believe that VFR traffic will be the main driver of international flight passengers. Garuda must capture this opportunity. 1 or 2x weekly and the OD schedule should be equal between CGK and DPS. I think with one technical stop either in DPS or HNL (should a technical stop is still required) is still OK, like when they did in 1990s with MD-11ER (and they were granted with transit rights or co-terminalisation rights, if I am not mistaken). Thus, for US flights I think no need for the airline to ask for fifth freedom rights from a third country airport, my prediction is that post COVID-19 it'll be more convenient for the airline to form bilateral agreements between 2 countries only.

US vacationers’ interest to visit Bali is high but the hassle of spending over 24 hours travel time with connection usually gets in the way. A direct flight between Bali and major West Coast city/cities will cut down the travel time and making the route very attractive. Garuda partners with Delta, so it will be and easy connection to fly Delta from anywhere in US to the hub city and hop on that GA nonstop flight to Bali without having to fly through ICN, NRT, HKG, TPE or SIN and shave off significant travel time. There is also an Indonesian diaspora in West Coast especially around LAX and SFO that will be enough to keep the route going if they have 1-2 weekly flights. I visited Indonesia a few months back and flew GA domestic, and with the great service they give on board I can’t wait to have them as an option for US to Bali route.

I dont think if garuda can sustain the U. S. flight. If they do it its just a financial disaster waiting to happen. Most southeast asian airlines avoided U. S. flight with exception to singapore airlines(business travellers) and philippine airlines(more than 6 millions filipino diaspora in U. S.)