Cathay Pacific may add four more flights to Bali between July and October this year, despite a drop in tourist arrivals to the island following the terrorist bombings last October.

The airline's country manager for Indonesia, Richard Reed, said despite the decreased number of tourists visiting Bali over the past few months, Cathay was optimistic passenger numbers to the island would increase in the coming months.

Cathay, which operates 95 aircraft globally, currently has seven flights a week to the island. Last year, the airline served 98,886 passengers to Bali.

"Although the increase in frequency is still a plan, our sales teams from Japan and Korea assure us that so far things are looking positive," he said, adding that Cathay would soon decide whether or not to go ahead with the additional flights.

Culture and Tourism Minister Jero Wacik said earlier this week that before the bombings in October, the average number of foreign tourist arrivals in Bali was 5,000 a day.

Wacik said that between October last year through the end of January foreign tourist arrivals had fallen to about 3,000 per day, increasing slightly to about 3,600 a day in the first week of February.

Reed said Cathay was shooting for the title "Airline of the Year" in 2006 from Air Transport World (ATW) magazine. ATW, a U.S.-based publication, is one of the leading monthly magazines covering the global airline industry.

"Last month, we were 14 to 15 percent above our revenue target in Indonesia," he said, adding that Cathay also had 14 flights to Jakarta and four flights to Surabaya each week.

"We are currently the third-most profitable airline in the world despite being ranked 32nd in terms of most passengers carried," Reed said. The company earned a profit of US$566.2 million in 2004.

Cathay's major shareholders are Swire Pacific Limited and CITIC Pacific Limited, which are based in Hong Kong.