Starting February 18th, 2020, Garuda Indonesia will resume non-stop flights between Soekarno-Hatta International Airport (CGK) in Jakarta and Amsterdam Airport Schiphol (AMS).

Famous for chopping and changing its schedule at the drop of a hat, Indonesia’s national flag carrier has decided to reinstate its Jakarta to Amsterdam flight after having dropped it in October of last year.

Effective February 18th, Garuda Indonesia will fly between the Asian and European capitals six times per week with a Boeing 777-300ER aircraft.

• Fight number GA088 departs CGK at 21:55 and arrives at AMS 07:30 +1
• Flight number GA089 departs AMS at 11:05 and arrives at CGK 07:35 +1

Garuda Indonesia used an Airbus A330-200 on the AMS-KNO-DPS route

Back in October, when the SkyTeam alliance member decided to switch its flight from Jakarta to the Netherlands, it was hoping to appeal to European travelers heading to Bali during the winter.

By flying from Schiphol to Kualanamu International Airport (KNO) in Medan and then onto Ngurah Rai International Airport (DPS) in Denpasar, Bali, it would cut an hour off the previous flight time.

In an effort to make the route profitable, Garuda Indonesia replaced the Boeing triple seven with a much smaller Airbus A330-200.

KLM was left with the only non-stop flight between AMS and CGK

By switching the flight from Jakarta to Medan and Bali, Garuda Indonesia left Dutch national flag carrier KLM Royal Dutch Airlines with a monopoly on the AMS-CGK route.

2019 was not a particularly good year for Garuda Indonesia in the eyes of the public, with the Asian airline getting caught cooking the books. For 2018 the airline said that it had made an $800,000 profit when, in fact, the real results were a whopping US$179 million net loss.

Following this, we then had the spectacle of a Garuda Indonesia trying to silence a prominent Indonesian YouTuber after he complained about the catering in business class.

Then to top the year off, company CEO Ari Askhara was caught smuggling a $57,000 classic Harley Davidson motorcycle on a new Airbus A330neo.

The manifest of the delivery flight from Toulouse to Jakarta showed that the aircraft had 22 passengers and zero cargo. This was deemed as being a blatant attempt by Ari Askhara to avoid paying import duties on the motorcycle.

Following  Ari Askhara’s dismissal and the appointment of a seasoned corporate executive, Irfan Setiaputra, Minister Erick Thohir made it clear that the first order of business would be to restore the airline’s tarnished image.

For Garuda Indonesia to restore that good image they need to listen to feedback from their staff and customers while at the same time plotting a realistic course in what is already a very tight aviation market.

2020 could prove to be a difficult year for Garuda Indonesia

According to a Bloomberg forecast carried by the Jakarta Post, Asian carriers can expect a tough year due to increased competition from LCCs and is off to a bad start due to the coronavirus outbreak in China.

Simple Flying will reach out to Garuda Indonesia to ask why they have decided to reinstate the direct flights to Amsterdam and ask if it was their intention all along for the Medan/Bali flight to be short-lived.

The schedule information in this article was originally published by Routesonline.