Pelita Air is set to relaunch its full commercial service with a flight from Jakarta to Bali on April 28, ahead of an expected boom in the number of domestic tourists for the Eid holiday in early May.
The airline is set to serve a daily route connecting the capital with the Island of Gods, with flights scheduled to depart Soekarno-Hatta Airport at 9:20am Jakarta time and arriving at Ngurah Rai Airport at 12:10pm Bali time. The return flights are scheduled to take off at 2:55pm and arrive at 3:45pm.
“In the first phase [of the commercial service relaunch], the first flight route from Jakarta-Bali-Jakarta will commence on April 28, 2022,” Pelita Air CEO Dendy Kurniawan said in a press release today.
Pelita Air received its order of two Airbus A320-200 planes earlier this month, which will serve the Jakarta-Bali route. The airline is set to receive 23 more of the passenger jets in the near future as it aims to become a major player in the domestic aviation scene.
Pelita Air was launched in 1963 as the aviation subsidiary of state-owned oil and gas company Pertamina. In 2000, it launched its full commercial service, but the service was halted in 2005 amid intense competition in the domestic aviation sector.
Since then, Pelita Air has primarily served chartered and cargo flights. Last year, it was touted as a possible bearer of the title of the country’s flag carrier as Garuda Indonesia struggled under its mountain of debt, but the government chose to keep the latter alive with an ambitious debt restructuring program.
