Garuda starting flights to London Heathrow from March 31

Garuda starting flights to London Heathrow from March 31

According to: http://ftnnews.com/aviation/29503-garuda-indonesia-to-launch-non-stop-service-from-london-uk-to-jakarta-indonesia.html

Garuda is finally starting its London Heathrow flights, from March 31, with five-weekly Jakarta-Singapore-London-Jakarta service, terminating in London at Terminal 3. The flights are expected to go on sale in the 3rd week of Feb. According to a previous report, the flights are daytime, not night, but despite that and since the SIN-AMS service is two weekly, I expect them to complement it, thus the five weekly being everyday except Sunday and Friday.

Question or statement ? 

Statement.  Garuda will transfer from LGW to LHR.  Wonder how they got the slots...

There has been a bunch of articles in 2015 about this.

"According to a report by CAPA, Garuda Indonesia has now acquired a pair of evening slots from an unnamed carrier at London Heathrow from the start of the 2016 summer schedule. While these are far from ideal to support its global schedule and will provide limited connectivity options via Jakarta across Asia and Australasia, it will open the door to growth opportunities at Heathrow."

Apparently took over 6 years to get it according to the article, but a different article last year mentioned they got evening, not the more ubiquitous morning slots.

So basically as soon as the EU sanctions against them were lifted.

Additional info in press release from GA:

Garuda Indonesia Announces London Heathrow as the New Home in the UK

As part of the airline's efforts to further strengthen its international network, especially in Europe, Garuda Indonesia marked its 50th anniversary of services to Singapore by announcing a one way non-stop direct flight from Singapore to London Heathrow starting from March 31, onwards. 

The five-star airline will move its UK home to London Heathrow from where it will operate non-stop flights from London to Jakarta for the first time and one-stop flights from Jakarta to London. In tandem with the move, the Indonesian flag carrier will increase its service frequency to five times per week, departing every other day except on Mondays and Fridays.

The change will allow the airline and passengers to take full advantage of the SkyTeam facilities available at Heathrow, including the SkyTeam Lounge housed at Terminal 4. Heathrow’s pivotal role in servicing the alliance’s 1,052 destinations makes it an ideal departure airport for Garuda Indonesia’s passengers. Flying directly to Jakarta means the airline will truly be the most efficient way of travelling to Indonesia from the UK.

Jakarta to LHR is not possible non stop?

The runway in CGK is apparently too old and improperly maintained to properly accomodate a fully fueled 777-300ER with full passengers and cargo.

A cautionary note, should you be considering flying with them. Garuda chop and change their European timetables and product offering on a regular basis. 

Not just Europe, but most of their schedule. Was considering flying them to PVG in Oct last year as the 77W was loaded into the GDS but once they took that out weeks before departure, went with CX/KA instead due to QFF.