After years of suffering big loses, national flag carrier Garuda Indonesia hopes this year will bring fortune to the airline amid signs of recovery in its financial performance.

Optimism soared after Garuda Indonesia Group, comprising of Garuda Indonesia and Citilink Indonesia, recorded US$19.7 million net income in the first quarter of this year.

While not impressive in and of itself, the figure marks a turning point from a $64.3 million loss recorded in the same period last year. The profit was supported by growth in revenue to $1.09 billion in the first quarter, up about 12 percent on the year.

Garuda commercial director Pikri Ilham Kurniansyah said on Wednesday that the improving financial performance was partly owed to a change in the airline’s business strategy. “What we have done is to align our products with demand, thus we cut costs and even gained a profit," he said, adding that the company had also tried to manage seasonality wisely.

"If it is low season, we don’t need to fly 20 times a day to Surabaya, because simply there is only demand for 10 flights a day. We do not fly 15 times a day to Medan if it needs only 10 flights,” he said.

The new strategy was what differentiated the current Garuda management from the previous one, Pikri said, adding that, in the past, the airline had tended to operate as many planes as possible, with the expectation that the more planes fly, the higher the utilization. However, that strategy could lead to loses and cost inefficiency, especially during the low season.

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