Ngurah Rai Airport Reaches 21 Million Passengers as Year-End Approaches

Mangupura, November 14, 2024 – I Gusti Ngurah Rai International Airport, Bali, has served 21.8 million passengers as of November 2024. This figure marks a 12 percent increase compared to the same period last year, which recorded 19.4 million passengers. Positive growth was also seen in aircraft movements, reaching 129,493 or a 4 percent increase compared to 124,153 movements in the previous year.

International passengers continued to dominate, making up 59 percent or 12.9 million passengers, while domestic travelers accounted for 41 percent or 8.9 million passengers up to November. According to I Gusti Ngurah Rai International Airport’s General Manager, Ahmad Syaugi Shahab, passenger numbers are expected to rise further in December with the Christmas and New Year holidays. The airport remains optimistic about achieving its target of 23.6 million passengers.

“Passenger numbers fluctuate depending on holiday periods. Throughout 2024, the highest monthly traffic was recorded in July with 2.1 million passengers. With 21.8 million passengers served up to November, we are averaging 1.9 million passengers per month, or around 65,282 passengers per day,” said Ahmad Syaugi.

He added that this growth was driven by new route initiatives that attracted more travelers. In 2024 alone, six new domestic routes were launched: Sorong, Lampung, Berau, Sumbawa, Palembang, and Pontianak. Meanwhile, eight new international routes were added: Bengaluru, Canberra, Abu Dhabi, Moscow, Kota Kinabalu, Phuket, Busan, and Shanghai.

Domestically, flights to Jakarta’s Soekarno-Hatta and Halim Perdanakusuma airports dominated, serving more than 50 percent of total domestic passengers, or 4.4 million travelers. Surabaya ranked second with 1.2 million passengers, followed by Makassar with 476 thousand passengers.

For international flights, the busiest routes remained Singapore with 2.5 million passengers, followed by Kuala Lumpur with 1.5 million, and Perth with 975 thousand passengers.

Syaugi emphasized that while this positive achievement is worth celebrating, it should not lead to complacency. Services for airport users continue to be enhanced in line with passenger growth. Together with stakeholders, the airport management is preparing operational plans for the upcoming Christmas and New Year (Nataru) travel period, during which they expect to serve 1.3 million passengers and over 7,800 flights.