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omestic carrier Batavia Air is struggling to pay back overdue for leased planes and will soon return two of its airplanes upon the lessor’s request, the Transportation Ministry has revealed.

The ministry’s director general for air transportation, Herry Bhakti Gumay, told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday that he had received a notice from the lessor on the plan to repossess the planes. He refused to identify the company.

“The lessor has informed us that they plan to take two B737 series operated by the airline company,” Herry said.

He said that if Batavia Air could not settle its financial obligations immediately, the two jets would be repossessed and it would impact its operations.

“We hope both parties can settle the problem immediately and find the best solution to the benefit of both,” he said.

Contacted separately, Batavia Air spokesperson Elly Simanjuntak denied the company was in financial distress.

“We are not experiencing financial problems. That is not the reason the lessor plans to take our aircraft,” Elly told the Post.

She confirmed that four Batavia Air jets — two Airbus 320s and two Boeing 737-400s — would be returned to the lessor, but that it was in line with the company’s plan to reduce its fleet.

“The management wants to balance the number of human resources such as pilots and crew members with the size of the fleet. We want to improve our on time performance,” she said.

The airline currently operates 37 aircraft comprising Boeing 737-300s, 737-400s and one 737-500 and Airbus 319s, 320s and 330s, serving more than 50 routes across Indonesia and Asia, including a daily flight from Jakarta to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

Last year, the company was given a yellow report from the regulator for having less than perfect time performance, which only reached 71 percent.

Elly said the airline aimed to boost its on time performance to 80 percent this year.

Separately, the company’s operational director, Herman Santoso, gave a different reason for the issue.

Herman said the company was still negotiating the lease price of the Boeing 737 series with the lessor.

Herman said the airline expected to reach a deal with the lessor some time this week.

Based on ministry data, Batavia Air passengers reached almost 7 million last year, comprising 6.75 million domestic passengers, or 11.25 percent of the country’s total domestic share, and 292,280 international passengers, or 3.59 percent of the 2011 international share.

In the first quarter of this year, it carried 2.6 million passengers, a 8.3 percent increase from the same period last year.

Elly said the company was currently studying which routes the airline would close or simply decrease the frequencies of flights on.

“We are still optimistic that our business will grow stronger with only 33 aircraft,” she said.

She said that Batavia recently introduced Surabaya–Jayapura–Sorong flights using Boeing 737-300s and increased the frequency of flights on the Jayapura–Timika route from once to three times a day due to strong demand in Papua.

Next month, the company will open a new international route connecting Denpasar to China’s emerging tourism city, Hangzhou.

It will fly three times a week to China using A320 aircraft.

“We are looking forward to opening more routes connecting big cities in Indonesia to the Asia Pacific because the demand is high,” she added. (nfo)