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irAsia Indonesia plans to double its flights to and from Bandung as more and more tourists are requesting direct flights to West Java’s provincial capital.

Airline director Dharmadi said Tuesday that starting April 15 the subsidiary of Malaysian budget carrier AirAsia would add one more flight a day to Denpasar, Medan and Singapore. The airline currently has once-a-day flights linking Bandung to those cities.

“Tourism in Bandung has developed rapidly since we began operating the Bandung-Kuala Lumpur direct flight in April 2004,” he said.

“The load factor is fantastic. Even during the low season from January to March the load factor can reach 85 percent.”

Dharmadi was speaking after the airline conducted a positioning flight carrying officials from the Transportation Ministry and state airport operator PT Angkasa Pura II from Jakarta on a new Airbus A320.

He said the new A320 narrow-body aircraft had better fuel efficiency, cutting fuel consumption by 15 percent. He also said the aircraft could fly 180 passengers, or 22 percent more passengers than the Boeing 737-300 currently being used, which has a maximum seating capacity of 149 seats.

AirAsia Indonesia is currently replacing all of its 737-300s with A320s.

The tourism potential in Bandung has triggered AirAsia Indonesia to park four aircraft at Bandung’s Husein Sastranegara Aiport, including one reserve aircraft, Dharmadi said.

In addition to increasing flights to and from Denpasar, Medan and Singapore, the budget carrier also plans to increase the capacity of its thrice-daily flights linking Bandung with the Malaysian capital.

Regarding the airline’s plan to go public, Dharmadi said the timeframe had not been decided yet. He only said the airline was committed to go public so it could develop faster and reach further.

PT Angkasa Pura II president director Tri S. Sunoko said AirAsia Indonesia had made a huge contribution to the international flights at Husein Sastranegara.

“AirAsia Indonesia contributed 79 percent of international passengers and about 24 percent of domestic passengers at the airport,” he said.

He added that the airport served 755,000 passengers in 2010, or an average of 2,098 passengers a day. The airport recorded an average of 2,500 passengers daily in January.

“We expect the operation of bigger aircraft will increase the number of passengers by 70 percent,” Tri said.

“In addition to AirAsia, Malaysia Air and several domestic airlines will also use bigger aircraft once the project to overlay the runway is completed in May.”

The airport’s 2,200-meter runway is being overlaid from 37 centimeters to 52 centimeters thick, allowing larger aircraft to land.

Tri said the airport operator would enlarge the passenger terminal from 5,051 square meters to 8,650 square meters with a budget of Rp 80 billion (US$9.2 million). The expansion would increase the airport’s annual capacity from 350,000 passengers to about 1 million. He said the expansion would begin in November until 2013.