TransNusa Perth to Bali Flight Review

It feels like every year there’s a new airline joining the incredibly popular Perth to Bali route.

One of the latest additions is TransNusa, an Indonesian budget airline that began flying between Perth and Bali in 2025.

When booking flights for our recent Bali trip in August 2026, TransNusa offered both the best price and some of the most convenient flight times for our dates. Having never flown with them before, I decided to give them a go.

So, what is TransNusa actually like? Below, I’m sharing exactly what you can expect when flying TransNusa from Perth to Bali, and my honest thoughts on whether I’d fly with them again.

Flight Details

• Flight: 8B81 Perth to Denpasar
• Date travelled: August 2026
• Departure: 14:25
• Arrival: 18:05
• Flight duration: 3 hours 40 minutes
• Aircraft: Airbus A320
• Class: Economy (all Economy seats)

TransNusa began flying to Perth in 2025 using its Airbus A320 aircraft. At the time of writing in August 2026, there are generally two to three TransNusa flights between Perth and Bali each day.

We booked our flight around seven weeks in advance and paid approximately AUD $350 per person, one way, plus an additional fee for seat selection.

As with most flights to Bali, prices can vary significantly depending on the dates you travel, so booking further ahead will generally give you the best chance of securing a cheaper fare. Looking ahead, I can see flights as cheap as $200 (one way, outbound from Perth) and $180 (one way, inbound to Perth) in off-peak periods.

We booked TransNusa’s most basic fare, called Seat. There are also Seat Plus and Flexi Pro fares available.

Our Seat fare included:

• 7 kg cabin baggage
• 20 kg checked baggage

This is one of TransNusa’s biggest advantages compared with some other budget airlines flying between Perth and Bali, as checked baggage is included even with the cheapest fare.

Seat selection costs extra. The cheapest standard seats started at $10, while we paid approximately $20 each to select seats towards the front of the aircraft in Row 2.

Extra-legroom seats were also available for around $30, which I thought was fairly reasonable.

Check-In

Surprisingly, unlike most other airlines, TransNusa did not offer online check-in for our international flight from Perth.

We arrived at Perth Airport around 2.5 hours before departure and were greeted by a fairly long queue at the check-in counters.

Thankfully, the long line moved reasonably quickly, and it took us around 30 minutes to make it through the queue and check our bags.

Still, I wouldn’t cut your airport arrival time too fine when flying TransNusa from Perth. Until online check-in becomes available, I’d allow plenty of time for the check-in process.

Boarding

Boarding began on time and was surprisingly organised.

Passengers were called according to their boarding group, with staff checking boarding passes before allowing people to join the queue. Anyone attempting to board before their group had been called were actually sent back to wait.

It’s a small thing, but it made the boarding process feel much less chaotic and more efficient.

Our flight departed on schedule, arriving in Bali on time.

Unfortunately, after landing in Denpasar, we pulled up to the dreaded sight of a remote stand on the tarmac, meaning we had to wait to board a bus to reach the terminal. There went my hopes for a quick exit after paying extra to sit up front.

Seats & Comfort

TransNusa operates an Airbus A320 on the Perth to Bali route, configured in the standard 3–3 layout with a total of 174 seats.

Standard seats offer around 30 inches of seat pitch, and this was one of the first things I noticed after sitting down. For a budget airline, the legroom felt generous – certainly more so than AirAsia who we flew home with.

For comparison:

• AirAsia: around 28 inches
• Jetstar: around 29 inches
• TransNusa: around 30 inches
• Batik Air: around 32 inches – read more in my Batik Air review.

TransNusa’s seats have a bright blue leatherette finish, while the upfront and extra-legroom rows are easily identifiable by their bright yellow headrests. There was also a small pillow waiting on each seat.

There is no seat-back entertainment onboard, which is standard for budget airlines operating the short hop between Perth and Bali.

Make sure to download a few shows, podcasts or movies before you fly – or bring a good book.

Food & Drinks

Hot meals can be pre-purchased when booking your ticket or added to your booking later online. At the time of writing, meals cost $12 when pre-ordering online.

If you think you’ll want something substantial to eat onboard, I’d recommend pre-ordering. The onboard menu had a much smaller selection of hot meals compared with the options available online before the flight, although there was still a reasonable range of snacks and drinks available to purchase. I ordered a noodle cup, which for 25K IDR (approx $2 AUD), hit the spot as a snack to tide me over until dinner time.

A complimentary small bottle of water was also handed out shortly after take-off, which was a nice touch for a budget airline. Service was polite and friendly from the Indonesian crew.

One important thing to know is that onboard purchases were cash only on our flight.

Both Australian dollars and Indonesian rupiah were accepted, although the IDR prices worked out noticeably cheaper based on the exchange rate at the time.

TransNusa also doesn’t serve alcohol onboard, so if you were hoping to kick off the Bali holiday with a cold Bintang at 30,000 feet, you’ll have to wait until you land.

Flying TransNusa with a Baby

We were flying to Bali with our 10-month-old on an infant lap ticket. While no stranger to flying internationally (we travelled to Japan at 7 months old), it was our first time flying a budget airline with her.

An infant ticket (no seat) cost 10% of an adult base fare, with no baggage allowance provided (although a pram can be carried free of charge as checked luggage).

At check-in, we were asked if we would like to check our stroller. I explained it was a travel stroller (we’re currently using the Redsbaby Skip3) and they were fine with us taking it on board as part of our carry-on luggage as long as we had a bag for it, which we did.

Technically, our travel pram slightly exceeded the official cabin baggage dimensions (listed as 56cm (H) x 36cm (W) x 23cm (D) versus our pram dimensions of 51cm (H) x 45cm (W) x 26.5cm (D)), but it wasn’t queried at check-in thankfully and fit fine in the overhead storage.

Just like our flights to Japan with Singapore Airlines, an infant seatbelt was provided shortly after boarding to use during the flight. There are no bassinet seats on TransNusa, and adults travelling with an infant cannot sit in an extra legroom seat (including the first row, which wasn’t an emergency exit row – we would have booked it otherwise to get some extra space for bub).