As the winter weather pattern approaches, Perth travellers will sometimes ponder the complicated mosaic that sits behind running an airline
Weather factors at alternate aerodromes (in Garuda's case generally Geraldton and Learmonth) also impact a flight - on occasions the weather forecast for Perth is also mirrored at the more preferred alternate aerodromes and therefore that aerodrome becomes unsuitable to use as an alternate aerodrome - hence the flight is subject to delay
Whilst it is unfortunate when weather delays occur we should ponder whether sitting on the ground in a Bali hotel or even at the airport maybe more relaxing than sitting down the back as an aircraft makes a missed approach or two in Perth only to end up in Kalgoorlie with the possibility of aircrew running out of duty time in the process. Any knock on delays caused by that process would most likely create a larger delay than occurs by delaying the Bali departure
Travellers sometimes hold the view that weather in Perth never lasts for lengthy periods of time (most likely true) and therefore Garuda is using weather conditions as a disguise for technical delays. Some familiarity with airline operations shows that generally the one aircraft that leaves Bali in the early hours of the morning then returns to Bali as the morning Perth Bali flight before returning to Perth once again in the afternoon to subsequently be the late afternoon/evening flight back to Bali
As occurs in Australia, when bad weather is experienced in Sydney, the resultant knock-on effect of delays within an Australian domestic airline schedule poses a similar dilemma to that faced by Garuda on the Bali - Perth - Bali sector - occasionally Garuda can and do change to another aircraft however that is not always possible