[AMcWhirter]

There is much speculation that Garuda will be suspending its London non-stop services.

Garuda may of course revert to its previous routing (which operated into LGW) via Amsterdam. But this seems unlikely considering KLM can offer Garuda passengers so many opportunities beyond Schiphol to destinations throughout the UK, mainland Europe, Scandinavia and the Nordic countries.

An official announcement is awaited.

Will Garuda continue to serve London Heathrow nonstop?

[Alex McWhirter]

News broke late yesterday.

Garuda will retain its London route and with a doubling of flight frequency.

But all services will now be routed via Amsterdam (as they were previously when Garuda was flying into London Gatwick).

It is unclear whether first class will remain. It was offered only on the London route when services operated non-stop. First class was removed from the Amsterdam route last year at the time when Garuda reconfigured its B777-300ERs with extra seating.

Garuda to reprieve London route

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mkcol74

[rferguson]

Apparently they’ve changed their mind AGAIN and London will get the chop with AMS being their sole European route.

[Alex McWhirter]

rferguson – Quite correct. We had to update the news piece above to reflect this fact. Until now both Garuda and its London PR have yet to issue an official statement. But as you say only the Amsterdam-Jakarta-Amsterdam services will be operated from end October.

[MarcusGB]

For Everyone’s information, i checked the Garuda Airlines site, to make a booking.

In the changed period in November 18 for a return to LHR-CGK, the flight ex Amsterdam leaves at 11.05am! (Currently it leaves LHR at around 21hrs…it varies!).
This means you must take only one the first, 6.30am KLM flight, to connect in Amsterdam. The price of a Business return is from £2.615!
If you do not, you have to take the eve flights before you connect, meaning a night stopover in Amsterdam. The price then falls to £2,165 return.
Both prices are more than i have paid for a return ex LHR to Australia in Business Class on Garuda.
Travel time is 27 hrs, (+ a night in a LHR hotel, getting up @ 2.30am).
Or add on 12 hrs stopover in Amsterdam,
Slight increase from the 14.5 hrs direct flight on Garuda now!

You can purchase a KLM flight on KLM.com, using KLM from £1,750, but the 773 KLM flight leaving AMS at 17.30hrs daily, also stops in Kuala Lumpur or Singapore if you travel to CGK or DPS. 2 stops.

Flights to Sydney for eg, do not fly daily ex CGK, and when they do leave at around 23hrs (these also change often!).
You will no longer be able to connect to travel on, less Business seats, and no First Class on the Amsterdam route?
The return from Australia, you would have to wait 8 hrs to connect in CGK, IF your flight on Garuda departs that day.
The KLM flights would have another stop in Kuala Lumpur, departing their 23.20hrs.

I cannot think of anyone who would use Garuda in any way, buying a ticket from London, with all these dynamics.
I certainly would not, and will cease to use them. I find them fantastic on the Aircraft, great value and top quality First, and Business 1-2-a seating.
They are hopeless when anything goes wrong, Aircraft changes, and impossible to contact to get any sense out of.
One of my one way trips with a sidee trip to Bali, had 7 changes before i departed, of times, Aircraft, and i had to inform them that my flights would not connect!
Goodbye Garuda, another revolving door of History showing the same patterns.
Their Skytrax rating with all this unpredictablity , should be removed from 5 star!

Garuda will not longer have Australian bound travellers either then.

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rferguson

[Alex McWhirter]

MarcusGB – Thank you for the detailed research.

One must also remember that not all travellers will be residing in the London area. Quite a few will be travelling from farther afield and, if they are able to leave a day earlier, will have to pay for overnight accommodation at Heathrow.

Also note that some of the UK-departing travellers will be heading beyond Jakarta to Denpasar (Bali) or elsewhere.

It means an even longer journey and the possibility that connections will not be so good.

As you say there are indirect flight options to Jakarta/Bali from Europe so, unless it’s a matter of price, travellers have many options with European/Gulf/Asian carriers.

Consider a traveller departing London. Look how many daily flights SIA operates to Singapore and then look at the connection opportunities offered from Singapore to Jakarta* and elsewhere in Indonesia.

* (There are over 30 daily flights to Jakarta alone with Singaporean and Indonesian carriers)

In Indonesia itself SIA is known as the unofficial national airline.

[paulkaz]

QR has 3 daily flights to Denpaser and Jakarta ( seperately ) connecting through Doha. EK similarly. GA has decided not to compete. The 777w is to be used on Tokyo and Melbourne routes from CGK and DPS respectively.
https://www.ausbt.com.au/garuda-axes-non-stop-london-jakarta-flights?utm_source=hero

[canucklad]

I wonder why Garuda don’t adopt a Hainan approach…..

route 1) Djakarta – Amsterdam – London -Djakarta
route 2) Djakarta – London – Amsterdam -Djakarta

Thus enabling them to market non-stop services from to and from both European cities?

[Alex McWhirter]

When Garuda returned to Europe (after its EU safety ban) it did operate something similar with LGW.

Garuda previously flew CGK-AMS-LGW-AMS-CGK (CGK=Jakarta).

As I see it the problem with this routing is congested LHR.

Garuda would have to obtain new slot times both for arrival and departure and remember that a slot also includes finding the space within the terminal.

(Remember after OmanAir paid US$75 million for that single Kenya Airways slot it still had to split its Heathrow operations between T2 and T4 as there wasn’t space in T4. The situation at T4 was resolved but it took months)

Flight frequency would also be lost unless the airline were to split operations between the two airports.

[Alex McWhirter]

With a new CEO and no end in sight for its losses it’s hardly surprising Garuda is making economies.

One of which is the axing of London-Jakarta as it targets “more profitable markets including China and Japan.”

https://www.reuters.com/article/indonesia-garuda/update-1-indonesias-garuda-drops-2018-profit-hopes-aims-for-losses-under-100-mln-idUSL3N1VY5A8

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