On Tuesday I wrote about how Garuda Indonesia had an equipment change on their Jakarta to London route, starting for travel in June 2017. Starting in June the flight will no longer feature a first class cabin, which is a shame, given that Garuda Indonesia has one of the world’s best first class products, as far as I’m concerned.
While I was sad about this news, it looks like there might be a silver lining. We first learned in mid-2016 that Garuda Indonesia wants to start flying to the U.S. Specifically, they want to operate a one stop flight between Jakarta and Los Angeles, with a stop in Japan.
One of the reasons they hadn’t yet started the service was because Indonesian airlines were banned from flying to the U.S. due to their safety ratings. In August 2016, Indonesia was finally granted a Category 1 safety rating, meaning that Indonesian airlines are now permitted to fly to the U.S.
So my speculation was that Garuda Indonesia may be using that 777 to start flights to the U.S. While that route hasn’t yet been confirmed, Reuters ran an article on Monday about how Garuda Indonesia plans on launching service to the U.S. this year in spit of Trump’s “Muslim ban.” Per the article:
“We are staying on course, planning to start flying there (the U.S.) in June or July,” Garuda spokesman Benny S. Butarbutar said.
So it certainly could be a coincidence, but I suspect that Garuda Indonesia taking a three class 777 off the London route is related to them desiring to launch their U.S. flight around the same time.
That’s great news, especially because I thought that Garuda Indonesia was going to use a two cabin plane for the U.S.
I can’t wait for this flight to go on sale, and hopefully for Garuda Indonesia to have a fare sale to kick off the route. 😉
(Tip of the hat to Mark)
I'm pretty sure GAruda has made lots improvements in many areas .
Why postponing your return all the way until November 2017???
Hope Garuda Indonesia will make it's comeback to LAX much sooner.
Spare a thought then for the poor sods like me originally booked on F lhr-cgk at end june. All i got was a notification that there was a change in my itinerary and the change was booking class A to J. That's it. NOTHING in words about a downgrade or that they had charged for a first class seat but were now putting me in biz. If not for this website ( THANK YOU BEN...
Spare a thought then for the poor sods like me originally booked on F lhr-cgk at end june. All i got was a notification that there was a change in my itinerary and the change was booking class A to J. That's it. NOTHING in words about a downgrade or that they had charged for a first class seat but were now putting me in biz. If not for this website ( THANK YOU BEN ) I might not even have noticed until it was too late. Is that what they were hoping would happen ? I am disgusted at this sneaky communication and will NEVER fly them again.
Garuda is still waiting approval from Japan Authority for 5th freedom to US. Japan only give 2x weekly. Garuda wants 3x. Hope this will come true with incredible fare.
FYI - small typo - "in spit[e] of..."
Very surprised they are putting F on a new route with so much competition. As far as I know they were the only direct flight between CGK and LON, given BA and VS don't fly there.
They may have a brilliant F product but they are now competing with other carriers who also have brilliant F products (ANA, JAL, SQ etc).
Given how hard it is to use miles for GA F they are going to either have to have F sales, or fly with an empty F cabin.
I love how many options there are from LAX to Tokyo. I feel like the pricing isn't the worst. I regularly find prices in the $3000-$3500 range for business. Singapore is usually the cheapest, but I typically do Delta to Haneda. This will be a cool addition.
Katyalw -
But they sell F to JED route. As I know, 2 cabin 77W are used to PVG and SHA. And yeah 3-class CGK-HND is seasonal
Australia to LAX with GA in F would be a great option... well if you're on the West Coast.
PER to SYD/MEL or BNE then LAX
PER to CGK to LAX
All one stop by only GA have F! Show me a good deal and I'll take it!
I hope you're right Ben about the LAX route and the some fare specials! Positioning in Los Angeles for me only requires a 30 min car trip.
@ Arcanum
Given the previous Dutch colonization of Indonesia, I wouldn't be surprised if there weren't stronger and deeper business ties between the Netherlands and Indonesia than the UK, even if London is arguably the financial center of the Earth.
Furthermore, given Garuda's SkyTeam membership, there are way more intra-Europe connection opportunities for Garuda passengers out of Amsterdam than there are out of London.
Singapore Airlines is screwed.
I'm surprised they'd cut F from the London route instead of Amsterdam. One would think London has higher premium cabin demand.
@Aergales, CGK-JED uses the 2-class 77W. CGK-HND is the other one that uses the 3-class 77W (at least during the winter months).
But my June 18th London to CGK hasn't been cancelled or I haven't been notified of a class downgrade from F....?
At first, I thought that will be nonstop flight to US. I got wrong :(
Wes -
GA only have 6 77W with 3 class for CGK-AMS,CGK-LHR,CGK-JED and DPS-NRT route which is not seasonal. The rest 4 is 2 class
GA have 10 x 77W. USA + AMS would account for 2. I hear they have a seasonal DPS to NRT as well. Where are all the others hiding???
Forget it to wait for great offers. Looking at the market it would be a huge surprise to see it ever below 5500- 6000 Dollar -> so useless for >95% of the readers here. Sad enough, I neither saw great prices ex AMS nor a sale on their CGK-NRT route. I hope i am wrong, but unless they offer half-priced one-ways to "test" their F-Product the party should be over.