Tourists walk on a beach in Badung, Bali, Indonesia, Sept. 9, 2021. Photo via Reuters
Indonesia’s new administration under President Prabowo Subianto is expediting a long-delayed project to build a second airport on tourist hotspot Bali Island.
Prabowo has fully endorsed the project, which aims to alleviate congestion at the existing Gusti Ngurah Rai Airport, Singapore’s The Straits Times reported, citing an unidentified Indonesian politician.
The second airport is planned for Kubutambahan District in northern Bali, two hours by road from the capital Denpasar.
This initiative follows a notable rebound in Bali’s tourism: Last year the island received 15.5 million visitors, or almost the same as in 2019 before Covid.
In the first seven months of this year the number was 3.89 million, up from 2.9 million in the same period last year.
Construction of the second airport was first proposed in 2020, but the project faced delays due to a lack of support from Bali’s local government, Bloomberg reported.
It was estimated to take two or three years to complete, serve 20 million passengers a year and accommodate wide-body aircraft such as the Boeing 777-300 and Airbus A380.
