Budget flyers and premium passengers will arrive at airports at different ends of the island once Bali’s new northern airport opens in a few years’ time.
Construction is due to begin next year on Bali’s second international airport that will be built in the village of Kubutambahan, on the opposite end of the island to tourist favourites like Kuta, Nusa Dua and Seminyak.
“All the low-cost carriers in the north and the normal in the south,” Indonesian transport minister, Budi Karya Sumadi, told Australia’s 9News.
The Indonesian government wants to ease growing pressure on the existing Ngurah Rai International Airport in Denpasar and, at the same time, create a new tourism enclave in the island’s underdeveloped north.
As a result, it is planning to send low-cost carriers to the new airport while Ngurah Rai will undergo upgrades and be made exclusive to full-service airlines.
The move is likely to have a big impact with Australian tourists, many of whom fly to Bali on budget airlines such as Jetstar, Malindo Air and AirAsia and then spend their holidays in the lively resorts in the south of the island.