We’d flown Garuda between Sydney and Bali in economy class a few times and loved it. More so even than Qantas which was a surprise as we assumed prior that Qantas would be better. However, flying Garuda business class turned out to be quite a let down.
For various reasons that I won’t go into for the purposes of keeping this review succinct, I couldn’t take my original flight between Bali and Sydney in economy as planned.
This led me to take this business class flight which was both expensive and underwhelming.
Here’s what to expect if you’re considering doing the same.
The route and ticket price
The route
My flight with Garuda was from Bali Denpasar to Sydney on an Airbus A330. It was a night flight that was scheduled to leave at 22:05 from Denpasar and arrive into Sydney at 07:10, a flight time of just six hours.
Unfortunately almost all flights departing from Bali that go directly to Sydney fly during the night.
Given the short journey time and the time difference (you arrive at 4am Bali time), it makes getting more than 2-3 hours of sleep pretty hard, especially when you include takeoff, landing and meal service.
Despite a number of different airlines operating direct flights between Bali and Sydney (Jetstar, Qantas, Garuda, Virgin Australia and Batik Air), to-date every airline we’ve flown with has operated older planes. And when it comes to business class, only Garuda and Qantas offer lie flat seats.
The price of the ticket
As mentioned above, most of the airlines on the Bali to Sydney route tend to operate older planes, so the standards across all we’ve experienced so far have felt more like a short international flight/long domestic flight, as opposed to long haul. This tends to mean that you’re not getting the best of what any of these airlines have to offer.
I feel slightly queasy writing this, but I paid $1,300 AUD for the flight which sounds obscene, but was actually cheaper than Qantas and about the average price for business class between Denpasar and Sydney (excluding the likes of Jetstar and in-direct routes).
You can sometimes get it fractionally cheaper, but not by much.
It’s worth noting that you may see Virgin Australia as a slightly cheaper option, but it doesn’t have a lie-flat seat, so it isn’t what would be thought of as a ‘proper’ business class seat.
From what I could tell, it appeared to be more of a premium economy/short-haul domestic business class seat and therefore it’s not a like-for-like comparison. In my opinion the fully reclining seat on Garuda and Qantas offers better ‘value’.
All of these airlines offer daily flights, however, Garuda often sells out so it can look like they are less frequent.
What’s included in the ticket
When flying Garuda business class your seat selection is included. You might think this should be standard, but even Qatar now charge for choosing your seat in business class….
You also get 40kg of checked baggage included (no limit on the number of bags, but a max of 32kg per single item), two cabin bags weighing no more than 7kg combined and a lounge pass (contrary to what I had read online, Bali airport does have a business class lounge for Garuda passengers).
You do not get a fast pass for security and luggage does not have a priority tag, so it’s not first off the belt in Sydney as you would normally expect with business class.
My experience flying business class on the A330 with Garuda
Cabin layout & space
The A330 with Garuda has a relatively spacious cabin layout with a 1-2-1 configuration in a uniform herringbone style. There are 6 rows of 4 seats, a total of 24 seats in the cabin. There’s a gangway between business and economy, giving it a separate feel.
The seats by the windows are at an angle - your head sits near the aisle and your feet point towards the window.
For the centre, two seats face inwards, with the head of the seat being in the aisle and the feet towards the middle of the plane.
The toilets are fairly standard, perhaps slightly larger than in economy, but I wouldn’t say by much. There’s a few products in there, but that’s about it for anything of note.
The seat
Most people choosing to fly business class on this route will mainly be doing it for the seat, especially with it being a night flight. So the bad news is that the seat is not all that great.
Compared to many other airlines, the Garuda seat is looking very dated. As you can see from the image below, it’s an older style and the wear and tear on it shows this to be the case as well.
It’s very narrow and tapers towards the end into what feels a bit like a foot coffin.
Yes, you can stretch your feet all the way out, but it’s extremely narrow width-wise at the end (however, the height isn’t too bad).
Otherwise when in an upright position there is a decent amount of space around your hips and the foot rest is particularly long, so you can stretch out quite far with some good leg support, and in that position it is comfortable.
Another strange decision is a permanent tray table, which isn’t too much of a problem when you’re sitting upright, but is annoying when you go into the lie-flat position.
The seat is old and scuffed, so don’t expect it to feel like it’s luxury in any way other than the fact it lies flat and is much wider than an economy class seat.
Unfortunately it only gets worse when you put it into lie flat mode. The gap between the screen and you when in full recline mode is so small that it goes from a foot coffin to an out and out coffin.
The narrow nature of the bottom of the seat means you can barely move, so if you know you shift around a lot at night you are going to be in trouble.
Sadly, it was one of the more uncomfortable business class seats I have ever experienced and it made for a pretty sleepless night.
The pillow is decent but the blanket is like an actual blanket, not like a quilt type one. I had to ask for a second one because it didn’t really cover me too well and with the ultra cold AC I was freezing.
There’s no mattress pad either, although the older style softer seat was far better than the more modern seat without a mattress pad on Singapore Airlines.
Other than that the only other thing to note is the privacy. It’s quite open to the aisle so it doesn’t feel very private at all when in the window seat, however, I did notice that the divider between the middle seats was quite high, so you would have a good level of privacy if you don’t know your neighbour!
There’s also plenty of storage with a full compartment and area for charging devices.
Food, drink and service
The service begins with a glass of champagne or juice before takeoff, but there is no formal dinner service because the flight is so late.
You could order a light meal but as a veggie the one option they had wasn’t appealing, so I decided not to try it.
I actually didn’t see anyone at all order food, which means for most people their only experience of food on this flight will be breakfast. And that is a shame because breakfast is always the worst meal on a plane.
When it comes to Garuda’s breakfast offering it is pretty average which does mean that one huge aspect of the soft product on this flight is a bit of a let down.
It wasn’t the worst breakfast I’ve had in the air by any means, but it wasn’t anything to write home about.
There was some cheap sugary yoghurt, a bit of fruit, pastries and then the main dish. The main dish was presented nicely and was quite good, but I think it looks better in the photo than it tasted : )
Let’s move swiftly on to the service and a major gripe I had was that they wanted to serve the breakfast 2 and a half hours before landing.
Bear in mind this is a 6 hour flight, with around an hour of this time being take off and landing when you need to have your seat in an upright position.
So after 2-3 hours sleep at best, they wanted to wake you up at what your body clock time was 1.30am to serve breakfast, for a landing time of 4am. Painful.
I asked if they could serve breakfast any later and they said the absolute latest was 2.15am Bali time. You could obviously skip breakfast and avoid this problem, but since I paid so much for the ticket, I wanted to at least try the breakfast. Plus when breakfast is served, the cabin lights go on and the noise begins, so it’s pretty hard to sleep through anyway.
Drinks-wise the offering is limited and lower quality than you might expect in business class. Though they are obviously trying to use Indonesian wines, which I like as it’s nice to try local, unfortunately Indonesian wine isn’t all that great, especially if you’re used to Aussie wines.
Other than that the service was pleasant, not overly attentive, but fine. I guess there wasn’t too much time for service overall when the flight was so short.
The amenity kit
The amenity kit has everything you could possibly need including, an eye mask, toothbrush and toothpaste, hand lotion, face mist and a lip balm by Anargya, so that’s an area that gets full marks from me : )
Wi-Fi
You get 250mb of wi-fi complimentary when flying business class, though it didn’t work on my flight. This didn’t really matter though as the flight is so short.
In-flight entertainment
By this point you’re probably thinking all I do is complain, but the in-flight entertainment on Garuda is known for being quite poor and I can confirm this is the case. My aim for the flight was to sleep, so the quality of the in-flight entertainment didn’t really bother me.
The movie selection is very small and very few are new releases, though there are some Western and Asian tv shows.
The screen is also fairly small and old, and the headphones match. However, the upside is you probably won’t need to use them as it’s such a short flight and during the night.
The lounge
I’d read a lot of mixed things about the lounge, varying from there isn’t one, to there is one but only if you pay extra, to there is one but it’s terrible.
So to set the record straight: there is one, you don’t have to pay extra and it’s not bad.
There is plenty of seating and it’s comfy enough, with many seats having charging sockets if needed. The wifi is decent and there are some local beers and wines.
I wouldn’t come here hungry, as the food is quite unappetising apart from the fresh fruit and perhaps some of the hot food if you eat meat.
When it comes to the bathrooms, the toilet floors are a bit sticky and there’s one sad grimy shower, though no queues! Having said all of that because I wasn’t sure I would even have access to a lounge and all I really wanted was a seat and some tea and fruit, I was actually very happy with it.
Just don’t go expecting anything like the Singapore Airlines or Qatar lounges and you’ll probably think it’s perfectly adequate.
The boarding chaos
This is a section I’ve never had to write on a business class review before, but alas it needs to be said. Garuda changed the gate for my flight twice pretty late on and as there are no announcements in the lounge it did catch me out a little!
I ended up needing to take a bus and run for the plane despite me checking with the lounge several times if I needed to leave yet and being told no.
It was quite a hair raising start to the flight but the staff were good in all the chaos and made sure everyone got on the flight, albeit by the skin of their teeth.
Is it worth it?
I probably don’t even need to write this because clearly it’s a no, absolutely not, unless you get the deal of the century.
I would say only take this flight if money is no object, you have an ailment that makes economy extremely uncomfortable, or you have a fear of flying or similar that makes economy too claustrophobic.
If you’re doing it to treat yourself, I really don’t think it will feel like much of a treat and you should save your money or points for a different route in the future.
The seat, food and service does not justify the price tag and at a guess you’ll likely come away feeling a bit ripped off. I think the lack of competition in business class on this route allows both Garuda and Qantas to fly old planes but with very modern pricing.
We’ve been fortunate enough to fly business class on many different airlines over the years and this was undoubtedly one of the worst experiences and mile for mile, one of the priciest.
Although I haven’t flown Qantas business class on this route, I have flown Qantas business class on their older style planes and the seat, food and service are all better than this particular Garuda plane. For this reason if the pricing is similar, I would opt for Qantas.
How does it compare to others?
This is going to be a little unfair, as the Bali to Sydney route is well known for being a low-quality route with older planes, so to comparing it to some of the long haul top offerings isn’t really comparing like-for-like.
When comparing it to other airlines worldwide, this version of Garuda’s business class comes bottom and there’s a huge gap between 6 and 7!
Here’s a summary of our business class league table (based on our first hand experience):
1. Qatar
2. Cathay Pacific
3. Qantas
4. Singapore Airlines (as long as it’s not an A380)
5. Emirates
6. Etihad
7. Garuda
This post may contain affiliate links, meaning at no additional cost to you, we will earn a small commission if you click through and decide to make a purchase. This helps towards the costs of running our website. Thanks for your support.
