Indonesian National Aviation Association (INACA) secretary-general Bayu Susanto said the complete recovery of the domestic aviation industry, initially expected for late 2024, was now projected to take place as early as the first quarter of next year, assuming “the current trend persists”.

International Air Transport Association (IATA) estimates released on Dec. 6 see the Asia Pacific (APAC) airline industry reaching the 2019 level in 2024.

Statistics Indonesia (BPS) recorded 52.56 million domestic flight passengers in 2022, which is 68.5 percent of the 76.68 million passengers transported in 2019.

“The challenges for the recovery of domestic routes [are] high interest rates, which impact the price for plane charters, the rupiah-dollar exchange rate and the high fuel price,” Bayu told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.

He elaborated that airlines’ financial condition had been deeply impacted by the pandemic and that the effect was still felt until now, hampering the recovery.

He went on to say that the waiting line for aircraft maintenance and the slow movement of spare parts in supply chains also impacted the recovery pace.

For international routes, Indonesian airlines are also looking at faster growth than previously estimated, with INACA now projecting the full recovery in the third quarter of next year – faster than the initial forecast of 2025.

Some 1.08 million passengers flew on international flights with Indonesian carriers in December 2022, still a far cry from the 1.72 million logged in December 2019, according to data from BPS.

To bump up the number, the Indonesian government has been actively lobbying China to allow for more direct flights, as the once-a-week charter from Shenzhen is currently the only route connecting the two countries.

Read also: Bali expects more direct flights, new routes from China

In addition, the Tourism and Creative Economy Ministry revealed that it was also eyeing India and Russia to realize more direct flights, given that demand from the two countries was high.

Garuda Indonesia is even more positive for its own recovery. Garuda CEO Irfan Setiaputra told The Jakarta Post on Monday that he expected traffic on the flag carrier’s domestic routes to “turn normal in 2023”, while he agreed with INACA’s forecast for the recovery of international travel.

“[It is on track], but we need to remain ‘conscious’, because we need to pay attention to whether passenger growth stays true to our estimates,” said Irfan.

Echoing Irfan’s estimates, Indonesia AirAsia CEO Veranita Yosephine told the Post on Tuesday that 2023 was “an exciting time” for her company, as it planned to increase its fleet to 32 aircraft and projected to reach the pre-pandemic level by the end of the year.

“In general, we believe that the future of the airline industry in Indonesia is looking positive. […] I believe the Indonesian airline industry will be able to recover by the end of the year and [get] back to the pre-pandemic level,” said Veranita.

United Nations aviation body the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) predicts a full recovery in global demand, which does not necessarily reflect in actual passenger figures, this year.

Read also: ICAO lauds Indonesia’s commitment to recover aviation industry

The ICAO’s “advanced big data analytics” boldly projected demand on most routes to reach the pre-pandemic level in the first quarter of this year and lie 3 percent above the 2019 figure by year-end.

“Airlines are expected to return to operating profitability in the last quarter of 2023, after three consecutive years of losses,” reads the ICAO’s press statement released on Feb. 8.

The IATA projects the industry to post a profit of merely US$4.7 billion in 2023, which would be only 0.6 percent of the industry’s total revenue of $779 billion.

Meanwhile, the industry scored a net profit of $26.4 billion in 2019, leaving a lot of ground to cover to return to the pre-pandemic level in terms of earnings.

The ICAO estimates that passenger traffic reached 74 percent of the pre-pandemic level in 2022.