Ngurah Rai Ranks Ninth in Southeast Asia by September Seat Capacity

Denpasar — — Bali’s I Gusti Ngurah Rai International Airport ranks ninth among Southeast Asia’s busiest airports by scheduled seat capacity in September 2026, with around 1.27 million seats, according to aviation data provider OAG and coverage by regional media.

The September ranking is based on scheduled airline seat capacity, a standard measure used by OAG that counts the number of seats airlines plan to operate rather than the number of passengers carried. According to IDN Times, Ngurah Rai is listed ninth with 1.27 million seats, down about 2.3 percent year-on-year. Vietnam’s VnExpress, citing the same OAG dataset, also reports Ngurah Rai in ninth place with 1.27 million seats and a 2.3 percent decline from a year earlier.

Three Indonesian airports in the regional top ten

The September 2026 data show Indonesia placing three airports in Southeast Asia’s top ten by seat capacity. OAG’s Southeast Asia market page and related coverage identify Jakarta’s Soekarno-Hatta International Airport as the region’s second-busiest airport in September, with about 3.24 million seats and year-on-year growth of just over 6 percent. Makassar’s Sultan Hasanuddin International Airport also appears in the top ten, with roughly 940,000 to 950,000 seats.

Reporting by IDN Times notes that Indonesia "contributes three airports" to the September list: Soekarno-Hatta in second place, Ngurah Rai in ninth, and Sultan Hasanuddin in tenth. A feature in The Business Globe Magazine similarly highlights that Ngurah Rai and Sultan Hasanuddin join Soekarno-Hatta in the regional top ten, describing this as evidence of Indonesia’s broad regional aviation footprint.

Regional context

Across Southeast Asia, Singapore’s Changi Airport remains the busiest airport by scheduled seat capacity in September 2026, with roughly 3.4–3.45 million seats, according to OAG. Jakarta’s Soekarno-Hatta is second, followed by Kuala Lumpur International, Bangkok Suvarnabhumi, Manila, Ho Chi Minh City and other major hubs.

Media summaries of OAG’s rankings indicate that several airports in the region are seeing differing trends in capacity. For example, OAG data cited by IDN Times and VnExpress show Ngurah Rai’s seat capacity declining modestly year-on-year, while Jakarta and some other hubs record growth. Earlier analyses of July 2026 data also showed Indonesia’s main gateway retaining a strong position in the region’s hierarchy of airports.

Seats versus passengers

For readers assessing Bali’s air links, the September ranking reflects planned connectivity rather than actual passenger traffic. OAG’s metric counts scheduled seats offered by airlines, which can be used to compare route capacity and network scale across airports. Passenger throughput, load factors and tourism recovery require separate statistics based on how many of those seats are sold and flown, which are not included in the available OAG summaries.

Ngurah Rai’s roughly 1.27 million scheduled seats in September 2026 therefore signal the scale of air services planned to and from Bali, and its position among Southeast Asia’s leading airports by airline capacity. However, the ranking alone does not show how many visitors and residents actually travelled through the airport that month or how profitable those routes were for airlines.

Sources

• IDN Times
• OAG Southeast Asia Aviation Market
• VnExpress International
• The Business Globe Magazine
• Periskop.id