The low-cost carriers will open up more options for holidaymakers traveling from Australia and Singapore.
The international terminal at Bali’s Ngurah Rai International Airport. (Photo: joakimbkk/iStock)
Singapore Airlines may have just resumed its daily services to Bali after a two-year hiatus, but it won’t be the only carrier on the route come March. Jetstar Asia plans to fly between Singapore and Bali from March 4, with Airbus A320-200 aircraft deployed on a thrice-weekly basis. Each Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday, Flight 3K 243 will depart Changi at 6:55 a.m. and arrive in Bali at 9:55 a.m. after three hours in the air. The return journey is slightly shorter at two hours and 40 minutes, with Flight 3K 244 leaving Ngurah Rai International Airport at 10:45 a.m. and returning to Singapore at 1:25 p.m.
Over in Australia, Jetstar Airways is resuming nonstop Sydney to Bali flights on March 15, although the latest flight schedules say they remain subject to government and regulatory approval. Qantas’ low-cost subsidiary will use Boeing 787-8 aircraft for the route; passengers can expect a travel time of either five hours and 40 minutes (southbound) or six hours and 15 minutes (northbound). Scheduled services between Melbourne and Bali will begin a day earlier, and are set to take around five and a half hours each way. Jetstar originally intended to restart operations on both routes from March 1, but pushed back its plans by two weeks due to the current five-day quarantine requirement for fully vaccinated international travelers.
Indonesia’s government has now shortened mandatory quarantines for those who have received their booster shots to three days, and officials are considering whether to lift all quarantine restrictions on international arrivals from April 1, depending on the local Covid-19 situation. While the Omicron variant has pushed the country’s daily count of new cases to a record high of 57,000 yesterday, hospitalizations and deaths have been far lower compared to the peak of the Delta-driven wave last July.
