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ational flag carrier PT Garuda Indonesia is expecting the leasing of French-Italian ATR 72-600 '€“ which will arrive this fourth quarter '€“ will not put a burden on the company'€™s finance.

Garuda said that it signed on Sept. 6 an aircraft lease agreement with the manufacturer of the planes, Avions de Transport Regional GIE, as well as an aircraft lease term and commitment letter with leasing and financing company Nordic Aviation Capital A/S.

Under the agreements, Garuda will lease 25 units of ATR 72-600, of which two units will arrive this November, Garuda corporate secretary, Pujobroto, said on Wednesday.

The company previously planned to purchase the twin engine turboprop aircraft. However, it then decided to lease them in attempt to reduce financial burden.

'€œGaruda is now using operating lease mechanisms to increase its fleet, in which the planes are owned by the lessor. Therefore, the spending to purchase the planes won'€™t weigh down Garuda. We will only need to pay a monthly leasing fee,'€ president director, Emirsyah Satar, said.

The price of an ATR 72-600 is around US$19 million, according to a Garuda financial report from June this year. Under a leasing agreement, Garuda will only spend $185,000 per month per aircraft, Pujobroto said.

'€œThe leasing fee will be financed by our earnings from operating the planes,'€ Pujobroto said, adding that the ATR 72-600 would serve short-haul and remote routes.

Besides ATR 72-600, Garuda already has several Next Gen Canadian Bombardier CRJ 1000 units, which also serve short-range routes. The company also signed an order for 18 more Bombardier planes last year.

Five Bombardiers had arrived last year and six had arrived in the first semester of this year with
one more plane scheduled to arrive this year.

Garuda was awarded on Monday the best airline in the region of Asia and Australasia from Passenger Choice Awards 2013 held by New York-based Airline Passenger Experience Association.

For the award, Garuda competed with other regional flag carriers, such as Air New Zealand, Cathay Pacific, Pakistan Airlines, Qantas Airways and Singapore Airlines.

Garuda reported a 14 percent increase in revenue to $1.73 billion during January to June from $1.51 billion in the same period last year. The increase was supported by a growing number of passengers by 24 percent to 11.9 million people during January to June period of this year. However, the company was unable to translate the growing revenue to profits as it suffered from a soaring financial cost of $23.2 million in the first semester of the year, that was almost a double increase from $12 million year-on-year.

Consequently, Garuda booked $10.9 million in net loss in the first half of the year, a significant setback compared to $1.87 million net profit in the same period last year.

Shares in Garuda, which are traded on the Indonesia Stock Exchange under the code GIAA, were closed at Rp 495 apiece on Wednesday, a 1 percent decline compared to a day earlier.