N

ational flag carrier Garuda Indonesia’s low-cost division, Citilink, is expected to double its total passenger number to 4 million in 2012 with the expansion of its fleet and new routes.

“By having 10 new Airbus aircraft next year and adding more flights, we are expecting 4 million passengers to fly with Citilink next year,” Elisa Lumbantoruan, the vice president of Citilink and executive president of finances for Garuda Indonesia told The Jakarta Post during the Indonesia Travel and Tourism Awards 2011/2012 in Taman Ismail Marzuki, Jakarta.

He said that as of September 2011, as many as 1.2 million passengers flew with the airline and that the figure was expected to increase to 2 million by the end of the year.

In order to take the advantage of the surging demand for budget airlines, the airline will add three more routes next year, which will link Jakarta and Yogyakarta, Jakarta and Pekanbaru and Jakarta and Palembang.

Citilink would serve the new routes with three flights a day each, he added.

“We also are increasing the flights for our existing routes such as Jakarta–Surabaya from six times a day to nine times a day,” he said. Other routes that will get more daily flights include, Jakarta–Medan from twice a day to six times a day, and Jakarta–Denpasar, Jakarta–Batam and Surabaya–Banjarmasin from twice a day to three times a day each. In addition, the airline has set a target for 90 percent of its flights to be on time.

“With the fleet we have today, our on-time performance is only 70 percent,” he said.

Citilink, with the arrival of four new Airbus A320 aircraft from September to December this year, will increase the size of its fleet to 10 aircraft by the end of the year.

Regarding the Transportation Ministry’s plan to implement a regulation that would require airlines to compensate passengers for flight delays longer than four hours beginning Jan. 1, 2012, he said that such a regulation would be discriminating.

“It is discriminating because they do not implement the same regulation for sea and land transportation,” he said.

Moreover, he said that delayed flights were mostly influenced by external factors.

“Airport infrastructure, air traffic control, weather, special flights, they are external factors that we cannot deal with. They should not burden all of these problems on airlines,” he explained.

The new regulation was previously scheduled to go into effect on Nov. 8, three months after it was issued on Aug. 8. However, because many airlines were not ready, the ministry regulation, No. 77/2011 on airline responsibility, was postponed until Jan. 1, 2012. Under the regulation, air carriers, charter plane operators and contract carriers would have to immediately pay each passenger Rp 300,000 (US$35.10) for flight delays longer than four hours.

Citilink won the Indonesia Tourism and Travel Awards 2011/2012 for the best low cost carrier airline.

As part of the airline’s campaign to increase passenger numbers, Citilink is offered a promotional fare of Rp 79,000 ($9.00) to all destinations with daily flights.

The fare was valid for purchases made online at www.citilink.co.id between Oct. 28 and Nov. 11, 2011, and valid for travel between January and March 2012.

There will be 25,000 seats made available at the special price.

“As a low-cost carrier, Citilink is committed to providing everyday, great value air fares for customers,” Elisa said earlier. (nfo)