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View all search resultsLion Air's nine flight slots suspended after delays
Transportation Ministry officially suspended nine flight slots operated by budget carrier Lion Air on Thursday because the airline failed to use the slots for 21 days in a row, in accordance with Ministerial Regulation No
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ransportation Ministry officially suspended nine flight slots operated by budget carrier Lion Air on Thursday because the airline failed to use the slots for 21 days in a row, in accordance with Ministerial Regulation No. 25/2008 on air transport operation.
Transportation Ministry's director general for air transportation Suprasetyo said the number of suspended routes might increase in line with the ministry's auditing process on the airline's standard operating procedures, following the airline's massive delays last week for more than three days.
The ministry also revoked Lion Air's flight permit for the Palangkaraya-Yogyakarta route on Feb. 24 for similar reasons.
'The airline can reapply for the permit after our evaluation is finished. As for now, they are not allowed to apply for any permits,' he told reporters on Thursday.
According to Suprasetyo, the flight slots include those serving the Surabaya-Ambon, Surabaya-Jakarta, Makassar-Jayapura and Lombok-Jakarta routes.
The flight slots that were revoked for the Surabaya-Ambon route have an ETD of 5:45 a.m. and for the Surabaya-Jakarta route the ETD is 6:15 a.m.
Lion Air is currently in the spotlight after a number of flight delays ahead of the Chinese New Year holiday last week caused more than 2,000 passengers to be stranded at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Cengkareng, Banten, west of Jakarta.
Based on data from the Transportation Ministry, Lion Air's on time performance reached only 73.8 percent out of 171,498 flights in operated in 2014, far below worldwide industry on-time ratings of 85 percent set by the International Air Transport Association (IATA).
Its closest competitor in terms of the number of flights was Garuda Indonesia, which posted an on-time rating of 88.52 percent out of 164,623 flights.
The ministry's spokesperson Julius Andravida Barata said that Lion Air's on-time percentage means that one in every four flights served by the airline was delayed.
'However, we can't judge an airline solely based on its on-time performance, because it depends on the airline's flight frequency as well. Some airline's have 100 percent on-time performance because they only operate a small number of flights,' Barata told reporters.
Andy Saladin, Lion Air's PR manager, separately said that the airline aimed to have 80 percent on-time performance this year, by increasing the aircraft's stand-by time from 45 minutes to 50 minutes, to improve the airline's flight preparation.
Most of the airline's delayed flights were caused by operational constraints, which according to Andy was common since the airline could not force the aircraft to fly when the aircraft was not in a proper condition, which could lead to a risky situation.
'We will improve our management. We are optimistic that we will achieve the target,' he said.
Andy added that the airline was still discussing whether it would reapply for the flight slots that were revoked by the ministry.
'We will discuss with our commercial team about whether we will reapply for the flight slots or not,' Andy told The Jakarta Post on Thursday. 'The reason behind why we didn't fly the slots for 21 days was due to the load factor.'
Transportation Ministry airline safety director Yurlis Hasibuan said on Wednesday that the ministry is set to issue a new regulation, Ministerial Regulation (PM) No. 30/ 2015 to permit the imposition of administrative sanctions on air transportation operators that fail to meet safety, security and service standards, including flight delays and flight cancellations.
