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ational flag carrier Garuda Indonesia will use its brand new Boeing B777-300 Extended Range (B777-300 ER) planes '€” bought to serve a new direct flight to the UK '€” for East Asia destinations due to lack of capacity of Soekarno-Hatta International Airport'€™s runway.

The runway'€™s inability to sufficiently handle the massive B777-300 ER flying at full capacity to London, has forced the firm to delay its flights, which were initially scheduled to commence on Nov. 2.

The company expects to cut some take-off weight by reducing the amount of fuel its four Triple Seven jumbo jets would carry by flying to East Asia instead of London, which requires more fuel to carry passengers and cargo at full capacity.

Garuda vice president communications Pujobroto says the jets would start serving the Jakarta'€“Shanghai (China), Jakarta'€“Seoul (South Korea), and Jakarta'€“Tokyo (Japan) routes by the end of this year.

Garuda currently flies to these destinations with Airbus A330-200 and A330-300 aircraft.

'€œWe need to put the planes into operation to reduce the losses from not operating the Jakarta'€“London nonstop flights in November,'€ Pujobroto told The Jakarta Post on Monday.

'€œWe picked these three cities because the passenger load factor [to these cities] is very healthy as they are business and leisure destinations. They would be able to compensate the losses,'€ he said, while describing the losses as '€œa lot'€.

Garuda has been forced to delay its Soekarno-Hatta'€“Gatwick flights due to the fact that the runway at the country'€™s main air gateway does not meet requirements for the operation of planes with a take-off weight more than 300 tons.

For the nonstop 14-hour Jakarta'€“London flights, the airline initially expected to operate the B777-300ER aircraft at their full capacity with 314 passengers and 11 tons of cargo, with a take-off weight of 351 tons.

But Soekarno-Hatta International Airport'€™s runway can only tolerate a maximum take-off weight of 329.37 tons.

That means Garuda would have to reduce the number of passengers by 39 and not be able to transport cargo during each flight should it insist on its London flights.

This would inflict significant losses to the airline.

Garuda has ordered 10 B777-300 ERs with a price tag of US$150 million each that would be delivered in phases until 2015.

Garuda would provide the Jakarta'€“London service, which was initially planned for five times a week, next May after the airport'€™s runway is improved, according to Pujobroto.

Airport operator Angkasa Pura II president director Tri Sunoko separately said the firm had been
working on the Rp 150 billion ($14.55 million) runway project since last year and expected to finish it early next year.