Australia-Bali airline market: full service airlines Qantas and Lion Group accelerate Bali growth

Bali in Indonesia is a large and very competitive market which historically has consisted mainly of price sensitive leisure passengers. It seems to be creating an almost insatiable demand for capacity. And full service carriers are now driving a new phase of expansion between Bali and Australia.

FSCs will account for nearly 40% of Bali-Australia capacity in Jul-2018, compared to approximately 27% in Jul-2016. Qantas and Lion Group's full service brand Batik have entered the market, while the two FSC incumbents - Garuda and Virgin Australia - have expanded slightly.

Qantas is launching Melbourne-Bali in Jun-2018, supplementing its relatively new Sydney-Bali service. Lion Group also intends to launch Melbourne-Bali in late Mar-2018, supplementing new Brisbane-Bali and Perth-Bali services. The Lion Group subsidiary Batik Air is seeking to launch several more Australia-Bali routes in 2019, using its future fleet of A321neoLRs.