Every time one reads the Forum, one sees postings either asking how Bali is recovering, or advising how busy or quiet it was on a recent trip.
Scroll up or down a few postings and the reader will invariably find a posting about Airlines. Either scedules have changed, flights scrapped, delayed, routes changed and in many cases cities totally dropped off regular routes.
The tourism bodies on Bali are sometimes quoted as looking for ways to increase tourism numbers. Maybe we should be emailing Bali Tourism, suggesting that they lobby the airlines to change the routes and schedules? Maybe we should email the Airlines direct.
One thing is clear. From Brisbane Airport it used to take 5.5 hours to get to Bali Airport. Now it can take up to 12 hours if Qantas FF wish to gain points for the trip. We used to use FF points to go to Bali up to 3 trips a year. I tried to get a FF ticket in May and was advised that to do the total trip on points I had to go via Singapore. 12.5 hours trip and no availability until November 2007! Garuda simply doesn't fly there any more. Many travellers have elected to look elsewhere because it is now simply "too hard" and "too expensive" to try to get to Bali. You can fly to other Asian destinations by direct flight with a week's accommodation thrown in, for less than a flight to Bali via one or two stopovers.
At this rate Bali will never recover back to say 1999 levels. I think suggestions are needed on how Bali lovers might be able to help.