Friday, May 04, 2012

Gulf News

Dubai Garuda Indonesia, which has 92 aircraft, will more than double its fleet to 194 by 2015, a senior official said.

“We are also planning to introduce flights to Abu Dhabi next year and Jeddah as more aircraft will allow us to expand the network of destinations,” said Helmi Kurnirawam, Garuda’s senior manager of marketing and communications.

The Indonesian flag carrier flew 17.5 million passengers last year, an increase of 36 per cent over the 12.5 million passengers in 2010. The carrier’s seat load factor increased to 75.2 per cent, up from the previous year’s 71.7 per cent.

Last month the airline placed a firm order with Airbus for 11 A330-300 wide-body aircraft. With these, Garuda will have 20 Boeing 737-800NG, 10 Boeing 777-300ER, 24 A330-200 or other types in the Airbus family, 25 narrow-body aircraft for Citilink and 18 sub-100 Bombardier CRJ1000 NextGen.

This year Garuda will receive 21 new aircraft: Four B737-800NGs, two A330-200s, 10 A320s for Citilink, and five sub-100 Bombardier CRJ1000 NextGen aircraft.

With these, Garuda’s fleet will reach 105 aircraft with an average age of 5.8 years.

Two-class cabin

Garuda will operate the new aircraft in a two-class cabin configuration on routes from its hubs in Jakarta and Bali to destinations in Asia, the Middle East and the Pacific. Arif Wibowo, Garuda’s executive vice-president for marketing and sales, said the airline currently flies from Jakarta to Dubai to Amsterdam four times a week.

Garuda opened its new route, Denpasar to Haneda, in April and will operate Jakarta to Taipei daily flights starting this month.

Garuda is also scheduled to launch code sharing flights to six European destinations: London Heathrow, Frankfurt, Munich, Rome, Zurich and Madrid.

Wibowo said Indonesia’s growth in 2012 was predicted to beat other Asean countries. It is projected to be between 6.5 and 6.9 per cent, higher than Malaysia (5.2 per cent), Thailand (4.5 per cent), the Philippines (5.0 per cent) and Singapore (4.4 per cent).

Gulf News Report

Gulf News 2012. All rights reserved.