Direct flights from Canberra to Bali take off again

Direct flights from Canberra to Bali take off once again with Virgin Australia Mon 22 Jun 2026 at 5:19pm In short: A direct airline service from Canberra to Bali has been re-established, with Virgin Australia set to run three return flights a week. It makes Virgin Australia the first Australian airline to fly internationally from Canberra Airport. What's next? The route between Canberra and Denpasar may be increased to five return flights a week during the school holidays. Direct flights from Canberra to Bali have taken off once again — but this time, with a new carrier. From today, Virgin Australia will run three 160-seat return services per week to the Indonesian city of Denpasar, with the prospect of five flights per week during school holidays. It makes them the first Australian airline to fly internationally from Canberra Airport, joining Fiji Airways and Qatar Airways in their overseas offerings. Canberra Airport CEO Stephen Byron said he expected the new service would "go fantastically well". "Virgin's been swamped with demand, it's a great holiday destination," he said. "The market here is not just the city of Canberra, it's the whole surrounds, which doubles the population. "The flights are really heavily sold. This has been one of the best launches of a service that they've had." Chief Minister Andrew Barr said it was an exciting opportunity for the ACT. "This is a service that I'm sure will be incredibly popular," he said. "I think of all my Facebook posts this year, the announcement of direct flights between Canberra and Bali attracted over 600,000 views. "So if you take that as a barometer of the level of interest in a city of 500,000 people, it's a pretty good indication." Embassy of the Republic of Indonesia's Deputy Head of Mission, Lintang Paramitasari, said the new service also offered more travel opportunities for international students. "Our students, they can have alternatives now, going straight to Canberra rather than going through several airports,"she said. Canberra's struggle to keep international flights The new service comes nearly two years after Batik Air axed its Canberra to Bali route, four months after launching. And indeed, Canberra has struggled to maintain international flight offerings over the past decade. There was a lot of fanfare when the city's first international flights began in 2016, with Singapore Airlines flying to both Singapore and Wellington, New Zealand. But just two years later, the airline was forced to cancel its Canberra-Wellington connection, due to lacklustre passenger numbers. Qatar Airways, which started flying from Canberra to Doha via Sydney in 2018, also ceased flights during the pandemic. After repeatedly pushing back plans to resume the service, the airline finally launched flights from Canberra to Doha via Melbourne in December. Fiji Airways appears to have had a more positive run, with the airline still offering direct flights to Nadi from Canberra after launching the service nearly three years ago. Mr Barr said he was confident Virgin Australia's offering would fair differently to Batik Air's because of their "very considerable presence" in the Canberran market already. "Virgin have already got staff here, they've got the check-in counters, they've got all of the lounge services," he said. "So this is adding another route — that will be a really popular one — to an existing and well-established airline infrastructure here in Canberra Airport." 'If anybody's going to make a go of this, it's Virgin' Aviation expert Neil Hansford was similarly optimistic, and said other airlines had already shown that short tourist routes could be viable. He said the new flight was comparable to Jetstar's Newcastle to Bali service. "If it's viable for Newcastle, which is an airport run by the local councils, I'm sure that the viability will be greatly enhanced by the management of Canberra Airport," he said. Mr Hansford said Virgin's offering was very different to Batik Air's previous Canberra to Bali service. "This time, the restructured Virgin is a much more viable airline, it has got the right sort of equipment, it's got the right sort of marketing, it's got a loyal customer base already established in Canberra,"he said. "And they're not unknowns. They're part of the Australian aviation fabric. They're trusted. "There's a lot of people with disposable income in Canberra who look to have a holiday, and the fact that they can just jump on in Canberra and go straight to their holiday will be very attractive. "So if anybody's going to make a go of this, it's Virgin." To be truly competitive Virgin would need to keep prices comparable with flights out of Sydney, Mr Hansford said. But he expects the convenience of flying straight out of the capital would be enticing to Canberrans. "My only question would be, is three days enough?" he said. "It's a bit of a toe in the water. If it's filled very quickly and at the right sort of prices for the airline, you'll see this develop potentially to a five day to seven day operation, and it will be very viable. "If you can make Fiji work, you're going to make Bali work a whole lot easier." The future is flight Mr Hansford said the next step would be for Virgin Australia to extend the route from Bali to Singapore. "[That would] give Canberra a much more direct connection through to Europe and Asia than what it's got now," he said. "To me, this is a building block that if somebody puts the blocks behind it, this could be a very worthwhile route for Canberrans to be able to get out to the world without going to Sydney airports." Mr Byron said he was aware "all eyes are on the performance" of the service to assess the viability of other international flights from Canberra Airport. "What we think will happen is that this will be the first, and a confidence builder for our other ambitions," he said. "Be it the start of services to Auckland, or be it the reinstatement of services to Singapore, or so on."