Located 13 kilometres 8. Ngurah Rai is the second busiest airport in Indonesia after Soekarno-Hatta. Ngurah Rai is one of the most popular island destinations hubs in Asia. In , the airport served 23,, passengers. The airport has category IX and is capable of serving wide-body aircraft including the Boeing and Airbus A Airport Council International awarded Ngurah Rai International Airport as the world's third best airport with million passengers each year in based on their services.
The airport is named after I Gusti Ngurah Rai , a Balinese hero who died on 20 November in a puputan fight to the death against the Dutch at Marga in Tabanan, where the Dutch defeated his company with air support, killing Ngurah Rai and 95 others during the Indonesian National Revolution in The airport is located in Tuban, between Kuta and Jimbaran , and is close to the tourist locations of downtown Denpasar , the capital of Bali.
The Pelabuhan Udara Tuban , or Tuban airfield, was established in at the narrowest point on the southern coast of Bali. The airport was originally built as a simple m long airstrip by the Dutch Colonial administration's Voor Verkeer en Waterstaats public works office. The northern end lay in the Tuban village graveyard and in the south it occupied previously vacant land. The location in this area of the island has subsequently facilitated arrivals and departures over the ocean with minimal noise and overflights intruding upon populated areas.
The current airport has an eastβwest aligned runway and associated taxiway, with over 1, m of that runway's length projecting westward into the sea. In the airstrip was in use to stage fighter and bomber operations and received bombing damage from Japanese forces. It was repaired using PSP pierced steel planking. Their Dutch commander was to learn that through a misunderstanding of his orders, Tuban airfield had not been destroyed by explosives as he had ordered.
Apparently his order not to delay the demolition was misread by the demolition engineers at the airstrip who thought instead that he wanted the operation delayed. This confusion allowed the Japanese to take the airfield completely intact. In the five years from to the length of the runway was extended to 1, m from the original m.
