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Strategic Airlines looks set to significantly increase its services to Bali after it was granted the lions’ share of available capacity on the Indonesia route following a competition with Qantas and Pacific Blue for new capacity which became available earlier this year.
In three draft determinations issued on September 29, the International Air Services Commission (IASC) proposed to award Strategic 1514 seats on the Indonesia route against its original request for 1716 seats, while the Virgin Blue Group was awarded 1260 seats out of its original request of 2340 seats. Qantas, which had requested 3898 seats to allow Jetstar to expand its services to Denpasar and Jakarta, was allocated 1126 seats. Qantas was also awarded two weekly frequencies and 369 seats of capacity beyond Indonesia.
According to the draft determination, Strategic intends to use the capacity to raise its existing Perth-Denpasar services from three times a week to daily, as well as to operate three times weekly services from Melbourne and Brisbane using 156 seat Airbus A320s. Virgin Blue has indicated that it will use its allocation to add three weekly services from Melbourne and Sydney to Denpasar as well as an addition four weekly services from Perth. Qantas’s allocation will allow Jetstar to add six weekly services to Indonesia, which are expected to include three additional flights from Perth and one additional service from Sydney to Denpasar as well as two Perth-Jakarta services, which are expected to carry on to Singapore.
With the determination currently still in draft form, the IASC has opened for submissions to be made by October 13. If no intentions to lodge submissions on the matter are received by October 6, the IASC may proceed to finalise the arrangements.
