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Garuda eyes 15% increase in passengers this year
Garuda Indonesia expects a significant increase in the number of passengers using its Jakarta-Shanghai service during a major international trade expo in the Chinese city later this year
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aruda Indonesia expects a significant increase in the number of passengers using its Jakarta-Shanghai service during a major international trade expo in the Chinese city later this year.
“Last year, we carried around 60,000 passengers on our three times a week Jakarta-Shanghai service,” Garuda Indonesia president & CEO Emirsyah Satar said after announcing the participation of the national flagged carried in the international exposition in Shanghai on Friday.
Garuda has been named one of official airlines for the “World Expo Shanghai China [WESC], which will run from May to October this year. We hope this will help us reach our target to increase numbers of passengers by between 10 and 15 percent this year,” he said.
Garuda provided air transport for around 11 million passengers in 2009.
As one of the official carriers for the expo, Garuda also expects the event will see an increase in cargo on Jakarta-Shanghai flights.
“The expo will be held over quite a long period — from May to October. If the trend is good, we will increase the frequency of flights,” Emirsyah said.
About 190 countries and 50 organizations are expected to participate in the six-month expo titled “Better City, Better Life”, which is aiming to attract up to 100 million visitors.
Emirsyah said the large number of Chinese tourists visiting Indonesia had become the main market for the national carrier. At present between 200,000 and 250,000 Chinese tourists visit Indonesia each year.
“This figure is expected to continue to increase because of the large number of Chinese people going abroad every year,” he said, adding that it could reach 48 million a year.
For cargo deliveries, he said, the airline was targeting an increase of between 20 and 30 percent, from 126,000 tons in 2009.
Garuda had thus expanded its fleet this year to providing better services, he said.
In August 2009, Garuda accepted the delivery of the first of 50 Boeing B737-800NG (Next Generation) aircraft to meet future demands.
In 2011, it plans to receive the first of 10 Boeing B777-300ER (Extended Range) aircraft, which have a capacity of up to 365 passengers (typical three-class seating arrangement) and a range of up to 14,685 kilometers (non-stop), according to the company’s website.
Emirsyah said the airline would also address the issue related to debt restructuring with the European Credit Agency (ECA) as required for the carrier’s Initial Public Offering (IPO) plan.
