Garuda Indonesia has an excellent first class product, which I’ve historically ranked as being one of the best in the world. At the moment, the airline only consistently offers first class to one destination. In the coming months, that destination will be changing, though. Let me first provide a bit of background, and then we’ll talk about the change.
In this post:
Garuda Indonesia only has two planes with first class
Garuda Indonesia has long been in a challenging financial situation — the airline can’t seem to keep any CEO for a long period of time, and therefore doesn’t have much of a vision. Beyond that, the government provides the airline just enough support to stay in business, but not enough to thrive.
Garuda Indonesia has a fleet of roughly 70 aircraft, though you’ll only find a first class cabin on the carrier’s Boeing 777-300ERs. The airline has eight of these jets, with only two featuring first class, so we’re really talking about a tiny fleet (these are planes with the registration codes PK-GIF and PK-GIG).
For a long time there have been discussions of Garuda Indonesia potentially eliminating first class, given that it’s such a small network, and one wonders if it even makes sense. For that matter, Garuda Indonesia used to have first class on eight of its 777s, but reconfigured six of them to remove first class.
In recent years, one of the two 777s with first class has even been leased by the government of Indonesia, as the presidential plane. However, the plane now seems to mostly be operating passenger flights for the airline, though typically it’s swapped in last minute, rather than being dedicated to any route.
For what it’s worth, Indonesia’s president otherwise uses a Boeing Business Jet, though obviously a 777 has significantly more range and capacity.
Garuda Indonesia first class route service changes
Currently, Garuda Indonesia only consistently offers first class on a single route, the 3x weekly flight between Jakarta (CGK) and Amsterdam (AMS), which operates with the following schedule:
GA88 Jakarta to Amsterdam departing 10:00PM arriving 7:50AM (+1 day)
GA89 Amsterdam to Jakarta departing 12:05PM arriving 7:55AM (+1 day)
That might seem like a random destination for offering first class, but it’s likely a combination of factors. Amsterdam is a SkyTeam hub, and there are also big historical ties between the Netherlands and Indonesia. Now, I still doubt there’s actually huge first class demand, since every time I look at availability on this flight, it seems pretty wide open in first class.
Anyway, there’s now an interesting update, as reported by AeroRoutes. As of July 31, 2025, Garuda Indonesia will discontinue first class to Amsterdam. This comes as the aircraft operating the route is swapped from a three-cabin 777 to a two-cabin 777.
So, what’s happening with that plane? Also as of July 31, 2025, Garuda Indonesia will start offering first class between Jakarta (CGK) and Tokyo (HND), as the route will change from a two-cabin 777 to a three-cabin 777. That route operates with the following schedule:
GA874 Jakarta to Tokyo departing 11:25PM arriving 8:50AM (+1 day)
GA89 Tokyo to Jakarta departing 11:45AM arriving 5:35PM
Honestly, that seems more logical and efficient all-around. I imagine there’s more first class demand between Jakarta and Tokyo, both from business and leisure travelers. It’s also better aircraft utilization, since a single 777 can operate this route daily, with fairly limited downtime.
Bottom line
Garuda Indonesia has a great first class product, which is only available on two aircraft (one of which is often used by the government). The airline currently only consistently offers first class between Jakarta and Amsterdam. However, as of late July 2025, that’ll be changing.
Garuda Indonesia will cut first class on the Amsterdam route, instead offering it on the Tokyo route. I’m just kind of surprised that the airline continues to bother with marketing and selling this product, after reconfiguring most 777s to remove first class, and now having such a small footprint.
What do you make of Garuda Indonesia’s first class strategy?
Does this have to do with the JAL JV?
I find the timing of flights from the rest of Asia to Japan to be very odd. Almost every First Class flight is overnight but only 5-6h. I don't understand the appeal of taking a redeye where you can *maybe* get ~4h of sleep in the first place, let alone splurging/wasting on First when you'll just sleep the entire time. That's what Business class is for.
Is this an Asian preference or am I interpreting this wrong?
I've been monitoring F awards throughout Asia for the past couple months and Garuda has one off F flights that are all over the place. Like I'm talking one flight on one Tuesday and that's it. Very weird.
Correction: HND-CGK flight is GA875, not GA89
I agree this is the logical step. New CEO is ex-Lion Air guy, who’s hopefully less constrained by government wishful thinking and has more room for action.
Is there any award seats? What is the best sky team currency for F redemptions anyway?
Award space wide open but 206K points+977 is outrageously, especially on the fees. Wow
I wonder if Garuda has ever considered moderating their prices slightly to make themselves somewhat competitive in their home market.
I wonder how the Garuda F soft product is holding up these days. Could be a fun review flight!
Super good! The best of all, just flew in Jan
That’s Garuda in a nutshell. Zero idea on how to maintain a class-leading product after making a splash with it in the glory days of the mid-2010s. Look at Garuda’s fleet and network, and see just how badly it pales with MH and TG, even though those aren’t much better in the finance department. SQ is in a completely different league.
GA has parked a great number of its A330s, and has just three A330-900neos,...
That’s Garuda in a nutshell. Zero idea on how to maintain a class-leading product after making a splash with it in the glory days of the mid-2010s. Look at Garuda’s fleet and network, and see just how badly it pales with MH and TG, even though those aren’t much better in the finance department. SQ is in a completely different league.
GA has parked a great number of its A330s, and has just three A330-900neos, having cancelled its A330-800neo order from 2021. Its only recent deliveries are secondhand 737s, some of which lack seatback IFE. In contrast, MH has taken delivery of some A330-900neo and 737 MAXes, while TG has a bunch of 787s and A321neos on order.
Its destination network is even worse. Not counting Hajj flights, it has a skeletal international network: only SIN has several daily widebody flights, and BKK and KUL have just one 737 daily. Forget about Ho Chi Minh City! It barely manages to serve HKG, TYO and ICN, plus SYD and MEL, and now also DOH thanks to a QR codeshare.
GA is very much trending downwards, unlike MH and TG, which have at least something good to say about them.