This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily on June 24, 2019

ADELAIDE: Malindo Air is looking to add more routes to Australia after it recently commenced its Kuala Lumpur-Bali-Adelaide service.

The airline will soon add Sydney as its fifth route to its Australia network after Perth, Brisbane, Melbourne and Adelaide.

Malindo chief executive officer Chandran Rama Muthy said the airline has seen positive traction from its Adelaide route which kicked off on April 16.

“Our comfortable seat pitch has gained popularity in the market and we have observed positive demand in our business class as well,” he said in a statement.

A narrow-body Boeing 737-800/900 aircraft, comprising 12 business class and between 150 and 168 economy class seats, has been deployed for the four-time weekly route from Kuala Lumpur to Adelaide via Denpasar, Bali.

Adelaide is the coastal capital city of South Australia state.

According to the South Australia Tourism Commission, the city offers an experience filled with culture, flavours, events and entertainment.

The experiences range from a trip to the metropolitan beaches, to strolling in the parklands and botanic gardens, or using it as a gateway to explore Australia’s outback as well as the wildlife on world-renowned Kangaroo Island.

“For Adelaide, we anticipate business, leisure and family and relative travellers, and will certainly explore the possibility of increasing frequencies soon. With this, we hope to boost passenger traffic at the airports and promote local tourism,” Chandran added.

Malindo’s daily service to Sydney will debut on Aug 14.

“Flight OD171 will depart Kuala Lumpur at 8.25pm and arrive at Ngurah Rai International Airport (in Denpasar) at 9.35pm with an hour stopover. The flight will depart from Bali at 10.35pm and arrive in Sydney Airport at 6.40am the next morning,” the airline said.

The return flight, OD0172 from Sydney, will depart at noon and arrive in Bali at 4.50pm. At 6.00pm, the flight will continue and arrive in Kuala Lumpur at 9.10pm.

A Boeing 737-900 aircraft, comprising 12 business class and 168 economy class seats, will be used for the flight.

Chandran said Sydney, which has a strong consumer trade with Malaysia, is expected to encourage more business travellers to travel on this route.

The new route will also entice more travellers to visit the iconic Opera House, which is acclaimed to be one of the Wonders of the World, he added.

So far this year, Malindo has launched seven new routes. They are Johor Baru-Guangzhou, Kuala Lumpur-Zhengzhou, Kuala Lumpur-Chengdu, Kuala Lumpur-Adelaide via Denpasar, Kuala Lumpur-Chitose via Taipei, Langkawi-Phuket and Kota Kinabalu-Tianjin.

The airline operates over 800 flights weekly across 56 routes in the region.