Batik Air Malaysia suspends flights from Adelaide Airport blaming operational costs
Just a day after Adelaide Airport celebrated the imminent return of Emirates, it’s had to bid farewell to another major international airline.
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A day after the state government announced the return of Emirates, another major international carrier has dropped flights from Adelaide, 9NEWS reported.
Batik Air Malaysia has suspended their SA flights to and from Kuala Lumpur due to operational costs.
The last of the Batik Air Malaysia flights from Malaysia’s capital touched down in Adelaide on Wednesday.
Adelaide Airport has confirmed the loss of the international flights to 9NEWS.
“Batik Air Malaysia has indicated that it is suspending its services between Adelaide and Kuala Lumpur as of February 8 due to ongoing operational constraints,” a spokesperson said.
Landing on Batik Air Malaysia flight, Matthew Conahan said he was frustrated at seeing the airline discontinuing their Adelaide to Kuala Lumpur flights.
“It is annoying, but we’re in a small city I guess,” Mr Conohan said.
“I was surprised to see this many people coming to Adelaide when I was at Kuala Lumpur, I thought the plane would be nearly empty, but it was pretty packed.”
Batik Indonesia also revealed they will be scaling back their flights from Adelaide Airport to Bali from four to two a week.
Batik said it is “common to lessen the number of flights to Indonesia this time of year despite knowing that 200,000 South Australians travelling there last year.”
The news comes just days after Emirates announced it was set to recommence direct daily flights to and from Adelaide in a $160m boost for tourism, trade and jobs.
The Dubai-Adelaide return service will start from October 28 operated by a Boeing 777-200LR in a multimillion-dollar sign of confidence in the state’s post-pandemic recovery.
Tourism spending from daily direct Emirates flights is estimated to generate more than $62m per year and create more than 315 full-time equivalent tourism-related jobs for South Australians.
Each flight also will have space for 14 tonnes of cargo totalling 196 tonnes weekly between Dubai and Adelaide.
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