Garuda president director Irfan Setiaputra said the COVID-19 pandemic forced the company to cut its flight frequency and such a measure had severely affected the company’s revenues and profits.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has had a severe impact on the company’s performance as our daily flight frequency has been reduced from around 400 to 100 flights. In addition, the number of passengers has also plummeted by around 90 percent,” he said in a statement on Saturday.

Garuda’s total revenue in this year’s first six months nosedived by 58.2 percent year on year (yoy) to $917.28 million, according to the company’s financial report submitted with the Indonesian Stock Exchange (IDX).

Scheduled flights remain the airline’s largest revenue source despite plunging by almost 60 percent annually to $750.26 million. Meanwhile, revenue from unscheduled or chartered flights soared by almost 400 percent yoy to $21.55 million in the first half.

Its operating expenses, at the same time, were down by 22 percent yoy to $1.6 billion in the same period.

“The company has taken strategic financial steps by renegotiating airplane leasing costs, loan restructuring and increasing cost efficiency to align between the supply and demand trends during the pandemic,” Irfan said.

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