BEIJING ~

Six Chinese cities have made an official request to Garuda Indonesia for chartered flights to the resort island of Bali.

“We are studying in-depth the request as we also have to consider the availability of planes and crew members,” Vice President of Garuda Indonesia for China I Wayan Subagia said here on Tuesday.

The request from six Chinese cities came after Garuda Indonesia served chartered flights from 10 Chinese cities to the world-renowned tourist island during the 2015 Chinese New Year celebrations.

The national flag carrier served the chartered flights from January 29 to March 29 using Boeing 747-400 plane comprising 20 business-class seats and 435 economic-class seats.

“The number of passengers reached almost 95 percent of the target,” he said.

Garuda Indonesia is planning to serve chartered flights from the Chinese cities to Bali during the summer holiday from June to August this year.

“If we open chartered flights for six more cities, we must profoundly consider the availability of planes and crew members,” he said.

Subagia said the request for chartered flights served as inputs for Garuda Indonesia to study a plan to open new regular flights from China to Indonesia.

“We do not rule out the possibility that if one of the chartered flight routes has promising prospects, we will turn it into a regular flight route,” he said.

Garuda Indonesia has so far served regular flights from Jakarta to Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, as well as from Denpasar (Bali) to Beijing.

In mid 2015, Garuda Indonesia is expected to open non-stop regular flights from Guangzhou to Denpasar. Such flights will also be opened for the Shanghai-Denpasar route.