National flag-carrier Garuda Indonesia will prepare 2,495 additional seats to anticipate a surge in passengers during the Christmas and New Year holidays. The additional seats will be available from Dec. 20 to Jan. 6. 

Garuda Indonesia's commercial director Pikri Ilham Kurniansyah said Tuesday that the airline would focus on deploying wide-body aircraft such as Boeing 777 and Airbus 330 to increase its passenger capacity. 

The wide body aircraft will be used mainly to serve several busy routes such as Jakarta-Surabaya, Jakarta-Denpasar and Surabaya-Denpasar. Pikri said for extremely busy routes like Surabaya-Denpasar, a wide body aircraft would be used to serve flights all day.

Using wider aircraft will be more efficient than adding flights with narrow-body aircraft, said Pikri. 

“Using wide-body aircraft is much more effective than adding flights. What are the benefits? The first benefit is, normal air traffic can be maintained. Adding flights also increases the risk of delays because of increased air traffic,” said Pikri. 

However, not all airports have the capacity to accommodate wide-body aircraft. For flights to Komodo Airport in Labuan Bajo, East Nusa Tenggara, for example, Pikri said Garuda Indonesia might provide extra flights with narrow-body planes. 

“The demand for flights to Labuan Bajo is high, but unfortunately, the airport cannot accommodate wide-body aircraft, so we will provide extra flights.” he said. 

Pikri estimated that passenger numbers during the upcoming holidays would be 2 to 3 percent higher than during the same holiday season last year.

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