A

mid the steep depreciation in the rupiah against the US greenback, Indonesia AirAsia (IAA), an associate carrier of Malaysian budget airline AirAsia is planning to gradually increase international flight routes and frequencies to earn a greater dollar income.

IAA chief executive officer Sunu Widyatmoko said recently that the international routes currently contributed around 30 percent of the carrier'€™s revenue and it planned to increase the percentage to 35 percent.

'€œWe need to get more foreign currency amid the depreciation of the rupiah, therefore we will gradually increase the share of our international routes,'€ Sunu told reporters.

'€œWhile Indonesia AirAsia X focuses on long-haul routes, we will focus on four-hour international routes,'€ he continued.

IAA is scheduled to introduce a new international route from Surabaya to Bangkok starting on September 4. The new route will be available four times a week and served by an Airbus A320 with a capacity of 180 seats.

The carrier is also in the process of launching a Singapore-Padang route this year and increasing the frequencies on several routes to Malaysia.

'€œThis move is also to support the government'€™s program to further boost inbound tourists, particularly following the visa-free policy, which brings opportunities for us,'€ Sunu said, adding that the carrier was also eyeing the Chinese market.

Sunu said that the carrier was also eager to reopen the Surabaya-Singapore route. However, he said that the carrier was still waiting for The National Transportation Safety Committee (KNKT) investigation results before reopening the Surabaya-Singapore route that was suspended following the crash of flight QZ8501 in December last year.

Data from the Transportation Ministry shows that IAA'€™s domestic passengers were down 28 percent to 1.16 million during the first half of this year as compared to the same period last year.

Budget carrier Lion Air and national flag carrier Garuda Indonesia'€™s low-cost arm Citilink also recorded declining domestic passenger numbers with 19 percent and 15 percent decreases, respectively.

Sunu said that the decreasing number of domestic passengers was partly due to the government'€™s price-ceiling policy issued in January.

Under Transportation Ministry Regulation No. 91/2014 on the price-ceiling '€” which was signed by Transportation Minister Ignasius Jonan on Dec. 30, 2014 '€” the price floor for scheduled airlines is set at 40 percent of the maximum price, an increase from the previous 30 percent.

'€œ[The plan to increase international flights] is also due to the reality of the current domestic market. The domestic market has the tendency to weaken due to the economic slowdown, in line with the over-supply situation, with a lot of players in the industry,'€ Sunu said.

Indonesia AirAsia X CEO Dendy Kurniawan separately said that the carrier was set to begin ticket sales on the Bali-Sydney service in August, with the inaugural flight scheduled to commence in October.

Indonesia AirAsia X is currently flying three routes, namely Bali-Taipei, Bali-Melbourne and Jakarta-Jeddah, which was launched in July 1.