Bali reopens to tourists, but with no flights

Indonesia’s holiday island of Bali reopened to foreign tourists after 18 months of pandemic hiatus yesterday, but the island is lacking one crucial ingredient: international flights.

The government recently announced Bali’s reopening after a sharp fall in coronavirus cases since July, when Indonesia was Asia’s Covid-19 epicentre.

But new visitors from overseas were nowhere to be seen yesterday.

Though the island’s Ngurah Rai international airport has carried out exercises to prepare for tourists to return, it is not expecting much to happen soon.