AirAsia adds more flights at Idul Fitri

JAKARTA. Low-cost carrier PT Indonesia AirAsia is adding daily services to its existing routes to accommodate a surge in passengers during Idul Fitri this year.

The airline, part of Malaysia’s AirAsia Berhad, is anticipating a 30 percent surge in passenger numbers during the Idul Fitri holiday in July, compared to the previous month, according to the company’s commercial director, Andy Adrian Febryanto.

“It [Idul Fitri] is certainly one of our peak seasons and we are ready to increase daily flights on our most popular routes, namely Jakarta–Bali, Jakarta–Yogyakarta, Jakarta–Surabaya [East Java] and Jakarta–Singapore,” he said on Monday.

The Jakarta–Bali route’s daily frequency will climb to 14 from the current 12 and that of Jakarta–Yogyakarta will rise to nine from the current eight flights per day.

Meanwhile, AirAsia will increase its Jakarta–Surabaya daily flight frequency to six from five, and the Jakarta–Singapore route to seven from six.

Supported by the additional frequency, passenger numbers are estimated to exceed 750,000 during Idul Fitri.

“We have received approval from the authority for the Jakarta–Bali route and are waiting to get approval for the other routes,” Andy said.

He added that part of the target would be backed by its recent partnerships with retail chain Indomaret and automated teller machine (ATM) network providers that enabled customers to make payments for all flight bookings at Indomaret outlets and at ATMs using the ATM Bersama, Prima and ALTO networks.

In 2014, AirAsia is hoping to accommodate 8 million passengers, climbing almost 2 percent from last year’s figure.

“It will only rise slightly because we don’t have any plans to deploy new aircraft this year,” Andy said.

At the moment, the airline operates 30 airplanes, covering five main hubs in Bali; Bandung, West Java; Jakarta; Medan, North Sumatra; and Surabaya.

AirAsia Berhad’s financial reports show that its Indonesian unit generated revenues of Rp 5.82 trillion (US$494.63 million) in 2013 and Rp 1.38 trillion in the first quarter of 2014.

The 2013 and first quarter results represented around 30.7 percent and 29.1 percent of AirAsia Berhad’s total revenues during the periods.

Meanwhile, AirAsia officially launched its partnership with the country’s largest taxi operator, Blue Bird Group, on Monday.

The partnership allows customers to book pickup services from Soekarno-Hatta International Airport using the group’s Golden Bird fleet.

Blue Bird vice president Noni Purnomo said that the group provided about 150 multipurpose vehicles for the partnership and had so far served up to 200 orders since May 16, when the pickup service was first introduced.

“The number of orders has reached 500 as of now,” she said.

Noni did not provide details on the contribution of the collaboration to Blue Bird’s overall business.

Prior to its collaboration with AirAsia, Blue Bird had established similar partnerships with other airlines, and the firm now serves 1,000 trips per day from Soekarno-Hatta. (Tassia Sipahutar)