{"id":752553,"date":"2026-06-22T09:20:15","date_gmt":"2026-06-22T09:20:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/752553\/"},"modified":"2026-06-22T09:20:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-22T09:20:15","slug":"direct-flights-from-canberra-to-bali-take-off-once-again-with-virgin-australia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/752553\/","title":{"rendered":"Direct flights from Canberra to Bali take off once again with Virgin Australia"},"content":{"rendered":"

Direct flights from Canberra to Bali have taken off once again \u2014 but this time, with a new carrier.\u00a0<\/p>\n

From today, Virgin Australia will run three 160-seat return services per week to the Indonesian city of Denpasar, with the prospect of five flights per week during school holidays.<\/p>\n

It makes them the first Australian airline to fly internationally from Canberra Airport, joining Fiji Airways and Qatar Airways in their overseas offerings.<\/p>\n

Canberra Airport CEO Stephen Byron said he expected the new service would “go fantastically well”.<\/p>\n

“Virgin’s been swamped with demand, it’s a great holiday destination,” he said.<\/p>\n

“The market here is not just the city of Canberra, it’s the whole surrounds, which doubles the population.<\/p>\n

“The flights are really heavily sold. This has been one of the best launches of a service that they’ve had.”\"An<\/p>\n

The Vigin service marks the first time an Australian airline has flown internationally from Canberra Airport. (ABC News: Callum Flinn)<\/p>\n

Chief Minister Andrew Barr said it was an exciting opportunity for the ACT.<\/p>\n

“This is a service that I’m sure will be incredibly popular,” he said.<\/p>\n

“I think of all my Facebook posts this year, the announcement of direct flights between Canberra and Bali attracted over 600,000 views.<\/p>\n

“So if you take that as a barometer of the level of interest in a city of 500,000 people, it’s a pretty good indication.”<\/p>\n

Embassy of the Republic of Indonesia’s Deputy Head of Mission, Lintang Paramitasari, said the new service also offered more travel opportunities for international students.<\/p>\n

“Our students, they can have alternatives now, going straight to Canberra rather than going through several airports,” she said.Canberra’s struggle to keep international flights<\/p>\n

The new service comes nearly two years after Batik Air axed its Canberra to Bali route<\/a>, four months after launching.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And indeed, Canberra has struggled to maintain international flight offerings over the past decade.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There was a lot of fanfare when the city’s first international flights began in 2016, with Singapore Airlines flying to both Singapore and Wellington, New Zealand.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But just two years later, the airline was forced to cancel its Canberra-Wellington connection<\/a>, due to lacklustre passenger numbers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The COVID-19 pandemic then served as the final nail in the coffin for Singapore Airlines, which axed its flights to Singapore in 2020.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Fiji<\/p>\n

Fiji Airways has been flying from Canberra to Nadi for nearly three years.\u00a0 (Supplied: Fiji Airways)<\/p>\n

Qatar Airways, which started flying from Canberra to Doha via Sydney in 2018, also ceased flights during the pandemic.\u00a0<\/p>\n

After repeatedly pushing back plans to resume the service, the airline finally launched flights from Canberra to Doha via Melbourne in December.<\/p>\n

Fiji Airways appears to have had a more positive run, with the airline still offering direct flights to Nadi from Canberra after launching the service nearly three years ago<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mr Barr said he was confident Virgin Australia’s offering would fair differently to Batik Air’s because of their “very considerable presence” in the Canberran market already.<\/p>\n

“Virgin have already got staff here, they’ve got the check-in counters, they’ve got all of the lounge services,” he said.<\/p>\n

“So this is adding another route \u2014 that will be a really popular one \u2014 to an existing and well-established airline infrastructure here in Canberra Airport.”‘If anybody’s going to make a go of this, it’s Virgin’<\/p>\n

Aviation expert Neil Hansford was similarly optimistic, and said other airlines had already shown that short tourist routes could be viable.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He said the new flight was comparable to Jetstar’s Newcastle to Bali service.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“If it’s viable for Newcastle, which is an airport run by the local councils, I’m sure that the viability will be greatly enhanced by the management of Canberra Airport,” he said.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Neil Hansford expects the new Canberra to Bali service will prove popular. \u00a0 (ABC News)<\/p>\n

Mr Hansford said Virgin’s offering was very different to Batik Air’s previous Canberra to Bali service.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“This time, the restructured Virgin is a much more viable airline, it has got the right sort of equipment, it’s got the right sort of marketing, it’s got a loyal customer base already established in Canberra,” he said.<\/p>\n

“And they’re not unknowns. They’re part of the Australian aviation fabric. They’re trusted.<\/p>\n

“There’s a lot of people with disposable income in Canberra who look to have a holiday, and the fact that they can just jump on in Canberra and go straight to their holiday will be very attractive.<\/p>\n

“So if anybody’s going to make a go of this, it’s Virgin.”<\/p>\n

To be truly competitive Virgin would need to keep prices comparable with flights out of Sydney, Mr Hansford said.<\/p>\n

But he expects the convenience of flying straight out of the capital would be enticing to Canberrans.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“My only question would be, is three days enough?” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“It’s a bit of a toe in the water. If it’s filled very quickly and at the right sort of prices for the airline, you’ll see this develop potentially to a five day to seven day operation, and it will be very viable.<\/p>\n

“If you can make Fiji work, you’re going to make Bali work a whole lot easier.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr says Virgin Australia already has established infrastructure at the Canberra Airport, unlike Batik Air.\u00a0 (ABC News: Callum Flinn)<\/p>\n

The future is flight<\/p>\n

Mr Hansford said the next step would be for Virgin Australia to extend the route from Bali to Singapore.<\/p>\n

“[That would] give Canberra a much more direct connection through to Europe and Asia than what it’s got now,” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“To me, this is a building block that if somebody puts the blocks behind it, this could be a very worthwhile route for Canberrans to be able to get out to the world without going to Sydney airports.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mr Byron said he was aware “all eyes are on the performance” of the service to assess the viability of other international flights from Canberra Airport.<\/p>\n

“What we think will happen is that this will be the first, and a confidence builder for our other ambitions,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Be it the start of services to Auckland, or be it the reinstatement of services to Singapore, or so on.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Direct flights from Canberra to Bali have taken off once again \u2014 but this time, with a new…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":752554,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[2666,137154,64,63,13146,287910,99,2667,182053,360982,360984,3389,360983,18986,360985,12807],"class_list":["post-752553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-act","tag-andrew-barr","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-bali","tag-batik-air","tag-business","tag-canberra","tag-canberra-airport","tag-direct-flight","tag-fiji-airways","tag-international","tag-neil-hansford","tag-qatar-airways","tag-stephen-byron","tag-virgin-australia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/752553","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=752553"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/752553\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/752554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=752553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=752553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=752553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}