New Zealand Finally Resumes Direct Flights To Bali

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It has been a long time coming, but finally, after three years, New Zealand to Bali direct flights are about to be resumed. The national carrier, Air New Zealand, has announced the return of the non-stop route to the holiday paradise.

There is still a little wait to go, however. The service will be resumed from March 29th, 2023, until October 27th, 2023. Tickets went on sale early on Monday, October 31st, and the airline expects high ticket demand. Chief customer and sales officer Leanne Geraghty told reporters, ‘Our last flight was in 2019 when we flew around 17,000 customers’.

Geraghty continued, ‘Bali regularly features as one of our top-searched destinations – currently in the top five – and we’re expecting interest to be hotter than the Balinese sunshine as Kiwis flock to book a winter getaway. The resumption of the direct route will be music to the ears of many Kiwi travelers who had to factor in layovers in Australia. Not only does this increase travel time but often also flight cost. Something that many travelers have been even more conscious of in a post-pandemic world.

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The Air New Zealand to Denpasar, Bali, route will run three times a week. The service will be operated on a Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner aircraft. Flight times will be adjusted slightly due to daylight savings, but the flights will take off from Auckland around midday and will touch down in Denpasar at around 4.20 pm local time. The route will run every Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday.

The return leg go the journey will depart I Gusti Ngurah Rai International at 5.50 pm local time and land in Auckland at 5.30 am the following day. The return services will also run every Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday.

With such high demand, tickets are selling fast, and travelers from New Zealand are advised to book as soon as possible. Being such a popular and long-haul service, even economy passengers will receive a full long-flight service. This includes a complimentary meal, in-flight entertainment, and, all importantly, checked baggage too.

Air New Zealand is the first airline to resume the direct route to Bali from the Shaky Isles. Emirates previously also offered the service, though they have shown no sign of restarting the Auckland-Denpasar route anytime soon.

New Zealand was praised for its ultra-cautious approach to coming out of lockdown. Some travel restrictions remain in place on the Bali side for all travelers, though most are considered straightforward now. New Zealand passport holders can be issued a visa on arrival in Indonesia to the tune of IDR 500,000.

However, there have been calls by tourism operations in Bali for the government to scrap this fee as soon as possible. The return of the direct New Zealand to Bali flight in 2023 is not the only exciting new flight service. Back in June, Virgin Australia announced the launch of their first ever direct Gold Coast to Bali flight.

Even now, travelers from the Gold Coast wishing to travel to Bali had to travel over an hour north up the coast to Brisbane. From early 2023 travelers from Gold Coast, Byron Bay, and surrounding areas will be able to fly directly to Denpasar in Bali. The route has been designed with holidaymakers and surfers in mind. The service is catered specifically for the surfing crowd and does not charge passengers extra for traveling with a board.

According to the Virgin Australia website, ‘Surfboards enclosed in a protective hard case bag, with fins removed, that weigh less than 23kg and are shorter than 3m incur no excess baggage fees and are considered part of your checked baggage allowance when you book a Choice or Flex fare with Virgin Australia’. Tickets are on sale now, and the route launches, in March, along with the new Air New Zealand Auckland to Bali route.