Bali to operate its own airline as others slash flights

Bali to operate its own airline as others slash flights

Agencies, Perth/Frankfurt/Bangkok

Bali's first international airline, which postponed its maiden
flight because of last month's deadly terrorist bombing, now
plans to take to the skies in February, the company said Monday.

Air Paradise International had planned to fly the four-hour
flight between Bali and the Western Australian state capital
Perth on Oct. 27, Associated Press reported on Monday.

The service was canceled after bombs exploded in a nightclub
district packed with foreign tourists at Bali's Kuta Beach on
Oct. 12, killing nearly 200 people, including almost 90
Australians.

Air Paradise national business manager Gary Hilt said the
airline now expected to begin services Feb. 16, but would confirm
the date just before Christmas, subject to government travel
warnings.

Australia has warned its citizens not to travel to Indonesia
because of the potential for further terrorist attacks. Owned by
a prominent Bali businessman, Kadek Wiranatha, Air Paradise plans
to run four flights a week to Perth and three to the southern
city of Melbourne.

Major airlines, such as Australia's Qantas, and Singapore
Airlines have slashed flights to Bali following the bombing as
tourist numbers plunged.

The attack has affected tourism throughout Indonesia, causing
the government to revise its expected economic growth rate to 4
percent, instead of 5 percent over the next year.

The Australian airline Qantas has scrapped several of its
Indonesian flights as thousands of tourists seek alternatives to
Bali. It is redirecting Indonesian capacity to more popular
holiday destinations both inside Australia and elsewhere - Fiji,
for example.

The airline has cut back services from Darwin to Denpasar to
one a week following the bombings. It is cutting its Sydney-
Denpasar services from four to two return flights a week.

Qantas is from December 1 increasing the number of flights
from Singapore to Darwin, in the far north of Australia, from
three to four per week, the airline told Deutsche Presse-Agentur
(DPA) in Frankfurt.

The changes come as Singapore Airlines (SIA) said it was
cutting flights from Singapore to Denpasar, Bali, to four a day.
Some tour operators are offering discounts of up to 40 percent on
holidays to Bali in an effort to attract tourists.

Australian Minister for Tourism Chris Burns welcomed Qantas'
decision to increase flights between Darwin and Singapore.

Burns said it was estimated that the Northern Territory, of
which Darwin is the capital, has been losing 35,000 tourists a
year because of the lack of flights.

Meanwhile Thai Hotels Association reported that the fallout
from the October 12 bomb explosions on the Bali island has
resulted in the cancellation of reservations for 32,000 hotel
room nights in Thailand, costing the local industry at least 120
million baht (US$2.8 million).

The Association's secretary Prakit Chinamornpong was quoted by
The Nation newspaper as saying 30 Thai hotels had reported large-
scale cancellations since the deadly attacks.

But he said many others had reported no impact or even an
increase in guests as tourists switched destinations from
Indonesia to Thailand.

Before the attacks, the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT)
had predicted tourist arrivals would reach 10.5 million this
year, a 6 percent increase over 2001.

Last year, despite an aviation industry slow-down triggered by
the September 11 attacks on the United States, the number of
tourists coming to Thailand grew by a healthy annual rate of 6
per cent.

The TAT said tourist arrivals grew at about the same 6 per
cent level during the first seven months of this year.

Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and other Thai leaders have
issued repeated assurances that Thailand is not a terrorist
target and ordered stepped-up security, particularly on the
southern resort island of Phuket.

John Koldowski, managing direct of the Pacific Asia Travel
Association's Bangkok-based Strategic Intelligence Center, said
he was concerned that a general "hysteria" could set in, spoiling
the climate for tourism throughout the region.

"There's all sorts of advice about intelligence that Phuket
could be under threat, but we've seen nothing that would validate
that," Koldowski told DPA. "I think there's a jittery reaction,
given that none of us have seen any concrete evidence."

"There's a very real danger of moving into some kind of
hysteria, where every little bang you hear, everyone jumps," he
added. "That's a self-perpetuating negative spirit. We don't need
it."