National flag carrier Garuda Indonesia is seeking to expand its market share to 45 percent by the end of this year following a partnership with the country'€™s largest private lender, Bank Central Asia (BCA).

Garuda announced on Thursday its partnership with BCA, under which the lender'€™s employees and their families could get special benefits from the airline.

Garuda Indonesia commercial director Handayani said the company saw the potential for market share expansion through the corporate agreement.

'€œWith a number of employees that reaches 22,000 individuals all across Indonesia, BCA is a potentially large market for Garuda Indonesia'€™s corporate market,'€ Handayani said.

She added that Garuda currently had a 44 percent market share as of June, an increase from around 36 percent last year.

The company aims to record a 45 percent market share by the end of the year.

With the partnership, BCA employees are entitled to special corporate fares and can enjoy up to 25 percent discount on international flights and around 7 percent on domestic flights, she said.

BCA employees will also have a special check-in counter provided by the airline.

Garuda is also targeting the bank'€™s roughly 12 million customers from the partnership, as Garuda ticket purchases had been top ranking category of travel sales transactions in the bank portfolio so far, Handayani added.

BCA promised to provide ease of payment to purchase Garuda Indonesia tickets through various payment channels, especially for its e-commerce channel such as its online payment service KlikPay.

'€œFor the KlikPay users, our customers can pay [for ticket purchases] immediately on the Garuda Indonesia website,'€ BCA director Suwignyo Budiman.

It also offers various other avenues of payment for airline tickets, including via ATM, electronic data capture (EDC) and credit card.

'€œAlso, with our virtual account, the [Garuda] agents can easily make payments or top up their sales earnings with Garuda,'€ Suwignyo added.

Suwignyo said that the agreement was not the first time BCA and Garuda had cooperated in the past to improve the company'€™s service quality.

Meanwhile, Handayani also said that BCA customers comprised a significant segment of businesspeople who traveled frequently.

'€œThis cooperation will give them higher accessibility,'€ she said, adding that the company aimed to book 25 million passengers this year, up from the 21.5 million passengers it carried last year.

Garuda Indonesia previously also signed a cooperation on e-commerce payments with BCA in March, which included promotions for BCA credit card customers.

BCA customers who paid for tickets by credit card could enjoy discounts of up to 35 percent as well as free onboard wi-fi service on all business class flights with Boeing 777-300 ER.

Garuda Indonesia has cooperated with more than 2,400 companies in Indonesia, including more than 15 banks, as of the end of last year. It hopes to join forces with 2,500 companies this year.

According to its financial report, Garuda has so far managed to book a net income of US$27.7 million in the first half of the year, a sharp increase from its $203 million net loss in the same period last year. (fsu)

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