Ansett to serve Brisbane-Bali route

JAKARTA (JP): Australian private airline Ansett International will start its first international operations from Brisbane, with a weekly Brisbane-Bali nonstop service on Saturday nights starting April 4, the airline said yesterday.

Ansett International general manager Craig Wallace said the new service aimed to meet an increasing demand for flights between Brisbane and Bali.

"Passenger traffic from Brisbane to Bali has increased 180 percent in the last 10 years. One-week holidays are the most popular Bali holidays from Brisbane and a weekly flight caters to this demand," he said.

"The service will also reduce travel time by cutting the need for Brisbane travelers to fly via other airports," he added.

Ansett general manager in Indonesia Con Korfiatis said Ansett would run Indonesian promotions in Australia, and national activities with an art and culture theme, to help with its marketing in 1998.

The Indonesian government had declared 1998 the year of art and culture, he said, and Ansett believed this campaign would help attract more Australian tourists to Indonesia.

Ansett has been operating for 62 years and operates 90 jet aircraft. The company had its inaugural flight to Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur in February 1996 and operates a daily service from Jakarta to Kuala Lumpur and Sydney.

Ansett has been running services to Australia from Bali since 1993 and has eight scheduled flights a week linking Bali and Australia.

Ansett also operates a international network which includes Jakarta, Denpasar, Osaka, Hong Kong, Taipei, Shanghai and Kuala Lumpur.

Suspend

Meanwhile Ansett said yesterday it joined rival air carrier Qantas in suspending direct services between Australia and South Korea because of the Asian economic meltdown.

Wallace said South Korea's economic crisis had made the airline's twice-weekly service to Seoul, which begun in 1996, commercially unviable.

Ansett flights to South Korea, from the Australian cities of Sydney and Brisbane, will cease starting Feb. 8, AP reported.

Qantas announced last week that it would suspend its four weekly flights to South Korea starting Feb. 1.

Wallace said his company's decision was based on the sharp fall in the value of the South Korean currency and tightened restrictions on the promotion of outbound tourism from South Korea.

"We will continue to monitor the situation in Korea and are maintaining a sales presence in that market in the hope that the economic situation there recovers as soon as possible, allowing a resumption of services to be considered," he said.

Tourism industry leaders said the decision would have implications for the industry.

"However, we acknowledge the airlines' need to make tough commercial decisions which may not always be in the best interests of Australian tourism," John Morse, managing director of the Australian Tourist Commission, said. (gis)