PT Garuda Indonesia and general insurer PT Asuransi Allianz Utama Indonesia announced an all-in travel insurance package for air travellers on Thursday, targeting the national flag carrier'€™s passengers who book tickets online.

Garuda Indonesia predicts it will fly about 45 million passengers this year and 15 percent of them are expected to purchase tickets via the carrier'€™s website.

Daniel Tumiwa, Garuda'€™s e-commerce vice president, said that the insurance package '€œGaruda Indonesia Travel Insurance'€ was designed as a non-compulsory protection package. It is available as an option for passengers willing to pay extra such protection.

'€œThe package is optional because it incurs additional charges for passengers. We will explain how important it is to obtain travel insurance,'€ he said, adding that passengers should feel protected every time they boarded Garuda'€™s planes.

Meanwhile, Allianz Utama director Inkes Lukman said that the cooperation was expected to raise awareness among air travellers of the importance of having insurance during a flight.

Travel insurance, he said, was a promising opportunity for the general insurer to explore given the fact that there were about 100 million air passengers in the country currently with a very low insurance market penetration.

'€œPeople tend to think they already have life insurance if anything bad happens during a flight. But there are actually many other risks that can occur during a trip, ranging from delayed flights to accidents,'€ Inkes said.

Inkes said that the insurance would cover medical treatment or emergency evacuation, losses from delayed flights, lost or damaged baggage and costs incurred from an extended stay due to lost travel documents.

He said that Allianz Utama, part of Germany'€™s Allianz Group, currently marketed most of its travel insurance through travel agents, with Garuda being the company'€™s first airline partner. Its global group, he said, had pretenders with more than 40 airlines worldwide to offer similar protection packages.

Garuda'€™s travel insurance fees vary from Rp 29,000 (US$2.38) to Rp 100,000 for domestic flights and starting from Rp 74,000 for international flights, depending on the destination and the length of stay for a round trip.

Daniel said that online booking accounted for 15 percent of Garuda'€™s total ticket sales, with around 70 percent of online reservations being domestic flights. He added that 80 percent of passengers that booked their flights via the carrier'€™s web portal opted for return flights.

Daniel said that Garuda aimed to fly 45.4 million passengers on 8,989 flights per week this year, with about 70 percent domestic passengers and 30 percent international flyers. Last year, it flew about 25 million.

To achieve this ambitious target, Daniel said that Garuda would purchase 27 new aircraft this year, comprising two Boeing B777-300ERs, four Airbus, 12 Boeing B737-800NGs, three Bombardier CRJ1000 NextGen planes and six ATR 72-600s.

Daniel added that as of March 5, the state-owned airline would officially become the 20th member of global airline alliance SkyTeam, which would greatly assist Garuda'€™s efforts to garner more passengers and expand its routes.

By joining the alliance, Daniel said, Garuda would have access to 1,024 destinations in 178 countries and its passengers could access 530 lounges worldwide with which SkyTeam had partnerships.

It has been reported that the Financial Services Authority (OJK) is currently deliberating a plan to form a flight-insurance consortium this year. The consortium is projected to comprise between five and 10 insurers with a total accumulated capital of Rp 5 trillion.

The consortium is to comply with a 2011 Transportation Ministry regulation on flight insurance, which regulates '€” among other things '€” insurance for delayed flights, lost baggage and accidents.

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