TUBAN ~ Culture and Tourism Minister Jero Wacik asked the central government to add three more daily flights from Singapore to Bali on Singapore Airlines (SQ).

If his request is honored, SQ would offer Singapore-Bali flights six times a day, he said.

According to Wacik, 60 percent of European tourists who visited Singapore also wanted to visit Bali via Singapore, but there weren’t enough flights offered to fulfill the demand.

Wacik said his office calculated an opportunity loss of 223,588 potential tourists per year because of the lack of available seats on Singapore-Bali flights.

There were more flights from Europe to Singapore than there were flights from Singapore to Bali, resulting in a bottleneck phenomenon, he said.

“These conditions should be anticipated by the government. There should be at least two extra flights from Singapore to Denpasar,” he added.

In addition, Wacik said that Indonesia needed to offer independent flights because it could not wholly rely on other companies.