Garuda cuts Darwin-Denpasar route due to global crisis

The Jakarta Post ,  Jakarta   |  Mon, 04/20/2009 1:32 PM  |  Business

State airline company, PT Garuda Indonesia, will stop flying the Darwin-Denpasar route, due to the fall in number of passengers amid the global economic crisis, an official says.

Garuda vice president corporate secretary Pujobroto said that the route cut would be effective starting April 22. "The numbers of passengers do not meet our target, so we decided to cut the Darwin-Denpasar route before we suffer a financial loss," Pujobroto told The Jakarta Post on Saturday.

"However, Garuda will still fly the route on May 7 and 15, as scheduled, to serve passengers who had already booked and confirmed our tickets," he added.

He said that the route cut would not influence services to other cities in Australia, namely to Perth, Sydney, and Melbourne.

Pujobroto denied media reports that increased competition among air services to Darwin was behind the termination of the Darwin route, which usually flies three times a week.

There are media reports that low-cost Australian airline companies Jet Star and Virgin Blue have raised their flight frequencies to Denpasar from many points in Australia.

Besides stopping flights to Darwin, Garuda also plans to reduce the frequency of the Bangkok - Jakarta route on May 22 from seven times to three times a week, due to the escalation of political conflict in Thailand.

"This *Bangkok* route is quite lucrative. We expect to resume our normal services as soon as the political situation there is conducive," he said.

In 2009 Garuda has opened 18 new routes, three of which were international routes, namely Yogyakarta-Singapore, Surabaya-Hong Kong, and Denpasar-Hong Kong, Pujobroto said.

"Actually, we will focus more on domestic flights which are more profitable than international routes," Pujobroto said, added that 15 other routes were dominated by domestic flight target markets.

Among these domestic routes are Jakarta-Denpasar-Kupang, Ja-karta-Jambi, Jakarta-Malang, Jakarta-Kendari and Jakarta-Tanjung Karang.

Last year, Garuda booked a profit of Rp 258 billion (US$22.3 million) after previously suffering losses for three consecutive years. (naf)

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