Sriwijaya targets 11% rise in passengers

Privately owned airline Sriwijaya Air is aiming for growth of at least 11 percent in passenger numbers this year with the arrival of a fleet of new planes, a senior official said over the weekend.

“We are expecting to carry some 9 million passengers this year, up from 8.1 million passengers in 2011,” the airline senior corporate communication manager Agus Soedjono said.

Based on the airline’s business plan, 12 units of Boeing B737-500 will arrive gradually this year starting in April with four units. Currently, the airline has 30 aircraft consisting of 12 B737-200s, 12 B737-300s and 6 B737-400s.

The airline has also been training their 737-200 pilots to fly the 737-500s since last year.

“We are planning to open a new domestic route, Jakarta–Jayapura, in April as part of our plan to develop our network,” he said.

The airline has served Papua since mid 2011 with the Jakarta – Manokwari, Jakarta–Sorong, Makassar–Manokwari, Makassar–Sorong routes.

In addition, the airline will begin to receive the sub-100-seater Embraer E190 jet in August.

The Embraer would be used for lower-density routes as feeders for routes covered by Sriwijaya’s Boeing series such as Denpasar–Labuan Bajo, Denpasar–Waingapu and Denpasar–Bima, Agus said.

In total, the airline is buying 20 E190s, five of which will arrive in 2012.

Moreover, they are buying 20 units of the B737-800 New Generation (NG) aircraft, the first of which will arrive in September.

After receiving the B737-800NGs, the company is planning to fly to Shenzhen and Xiamen in China and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

For the Malaysian route, besides Jakarta–Kuala Lumpur, the airline intends to connect Bandung, West Java and Surabaya, East Java to the Malaysian capital.

Sriwijaya Air picked up 15 percent of airline market share in the country last year, up from 2010’s 13.7 percent, putting them in third place after the national flag carrier Garuda Indonesia and another private firm Lion Air. (nfo)