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hree local airlines, including Lion Air, Merpati Air and Sriwijaya Air received a red report in their on-time performance (OTP) for their failure to meet the government’s standards. Djoko Murjatmodjo, the ministry’s acting transportation director, said Friday.

From January to November, Djoko said that Lion Air’s OTP was 66.78 percent average while Merpati’s and Sriwijaya Air’s were 68.43 percent and 69.87 percent, respectively.

“We have reprimanded the airlines in order that they will improve their on-time performance,” he said.

An airline would be categorized of having a poor time performance if their OTP was below 70 percent, he said.

Although it is still below the standard, Lion Air’s OTP showed an improvement rising to 65.11 percent in November from 63.85 percent in October. Similar with Lion, Sriwijaya Air had made some improvements.

Sriwijaya’s OTP improved to 63.39 percent in November from 61.88 percent in October. It was only Merpati that showed a decrease in the time performance for the past two months.

Their OTP decreased from 64.65 percent in October to 63.74 percent in November.

“We are not going to allow airlines with poor time performances to open new routes. We are going to hold the airlines’ Flight Approval,” he said.

He said that the airlines had to show some progress in their OTP for several months to open new routes. In addition, two other privately owned airlines, Batavia Air and Indonesia Air Asia (IAA), were given a yellow report, showing an OTP between 70 to 80 percent, he said.

Batavia’s and IAA’s OTP average last year were 72.08 percent and 71.09 percent, respectively. However, both airlines’ performances were falling back for the past two months.

Batavia Air’s OTP fell from 74.78 percent in October to 71.49 percent in November while IAA’s OTP declined from 66.21 percent to 65.11 percent.

He said that only the national flag carrier, Garuda Indonesia, was categorized as an “excellent airline”, as they received a green report by the government with a 84.36 percent OTP.

“Garuda remains the best airline in the country,” he said. Moreover, cancelled flights remained high for Merpati with 9.21 percent.

Sriwijaya Air’s cancellation came second highest with 4.11 percent, followed by Garuda Indonesia’s 0.82 percent in the third place. IAA had the smallest number in flight cancellations with 0.16 percent. (nfo)