Sriwijaya Air add flights ahead of Imlek

JAKARTA. Indonesia’s third-largest carrier, Sriwijaya Air, is increasing its flights on several routes to anticipate a hike in passengers ahead of the Chinese New Year (Imlek).

Sriwijaya Air corporate communications senior manager Agus Soedjono said during the Chinese New Year 2565 holiday season, that Sriwijaya Air was providing 11,760 additional seats via extra flights that would start from Jan.27 to Feb.4.

He said the extra flights would be provided for the Jakarta-Pontianak, Jakarta-Pangkalpinang and Jakarta-Tanjung Pandan routes. With the extras, he said, flights between Jakarta-Pontianak during the period of Jan.27 to Feb.4 would be operated nine times a day.

“Meanwhile, flights between Jakarta-Pangkalpinang for Jan.27, Jan.28 and Jan.31 as well as Feb.1, Feb.3 and Feb.4 will be operated seven times a day,” Agus said on Sunday as quoted by Antara news agency.

He added the number of flights operated to serve the Tanjung Pandan-Jakarta route on Jan.29 and Jan.30 as well as Feb.2 would be increased to eight times per day. On Feb.2, flights between Jakarta-Tanjung Pandan will be operated five times a day, from four times a day outside the holiday season.

Agus said the number of extra flights for this year’s Imlek was higher than last year, reaching 7,000 additional seats or up by 68 percent from last year’s celebration.

“Every year, Imlek’s extra flights, especially for the Jakarta-Pontianak route, have continued to increase as there are many ethnic Chinese in the city [Pontianak] who celebrate the festivity,” said Agus. (ebf)