EMIRATES: First A380 to Bali, Indonesia. Good or bad?

Direct flights from Dubai to Bali, start on 1 June 2023. This represents the first commercial A380 to fly to Indonesia

Emirates is using a new 2-class A380 service that will replace one of the current two daily 2-class 777-300ER services to Bali The debut A380 flight will be:

• EK368 departing Dubai at 03:25, arriving in Denpasar at 16:35
• EK369 departs Bali at 19:40 and arrives in Dubai at 00:45

The two-class Emirates A380 aircraft has 58 (old-fashioned) lie-flat Business Class seats and 557 in Economy Class.

Emirates started flying a non-stop daily service from Dubai to Bali in 2015. Emirates currently operates 28 weekly flights to both Bali and Jakarta. Emirates offers 29 onward destinations through its partnership with Garuda Indonesia and Batik Air. 

2PAXfly Takeout

I’m not sure what I feel about this development. Bali used to be a ‘hidden paradise’. It hasn’t been that since the 1970’s. Bali is now possibly over-touristed, full of expensive hotels with instagrammable features. The hindu culture original to the island is still sustained with its many and daily rituals. However, that resistance is tested by non-Hindu immigrants from Java, and badly behaved western tourists.

From Australia, Bali is about 6 hours away, and is an extremely popular tourist destinations for Australians at all levels of comfort. I love travelling there, but it is getting harder and harder to find what made Bali so attractive in the first place. Accommodation is increasingly more expensive, as you pay for exclusivity and isolation, and have to travel further and further away from the main tourist area of Kuta to find it.

Bringing in over 500 people per day on one aircraft to the island is a lot for the infrastructure to deal with.

On the upside, it will make the possibility for Australians of travelling onward to Dubai from Bali in the comfort of the A380 possible. That’s an idea – head to Bali for some relaxation and then on to Dubai and Europe.