Garuda puts on 36 extra flights during holidays
JAKARTA (JP): State-owned flag carrier Garuda Indonesia will operate 36 extra flights on five local and one international route to meet an expected surge in passenger load during the year-end and Idul Fitri holiday.
Garuda's vice president of commerce Bachrul Hakim said on Friday the airline would use wide-bodied aircraft for the extra flights, which would increase capacity by 9,640 seats on the six destinations.
He said the additional flights were scheduled for Jakarta to Yoygakarta, Surakarta, Palembang, Pekanbaru, Riau and Denpasar, as well as from Denpasar to Singapore.
"There will be no increase in the ticket price whatsoever. But, since bookings for Christmas, New Year and Lebaran (Idul Fitri) holidays are almost filled up, you'd better book now because they will run out very quickly," he told a media briefing.
The end-of-year holidays will be much longer this year as the Idul Fitri celebration will take place only a week after New Year.
Bachrul appealed to prospective passengers to buy the tickets from authorized agents, not from ticket scalpers, to ensure they would not experience difficulties with the airline's planned stricter identification check of passengers and their tickets at boarding gates.
He said the estimated increase in the airline's passengers during this year's holiday season would likely be lower than last year's because most people were still putting off air travel during the crisis.
As for flights on New Year's Eve, Bachrul said Garuda would not make any changes in its schedule except for the departure time for its flights to Japan on Dec. 31, which would be delayed until the early hours of Jan. 1, 2000.
"We don't naturally have domestic service at midnight. So, the Y2K computer glitch will have no affect on our flights. After all, we have prepared ourselves for Y2K problems," he added.
Garuda lost US$46.4 million in 1998 due to the collapse of rupiah against the greenback beginning in 1997.
In a bid to keep its fleet afloat, Garuda has cut 40 percent of its international flights, trimmed down its fleet capacity from 58 aircraft in 1997 to 42 this year, clipped the frequency of some domestic flights and shrunk the number of employees from 14,000 in 1997 to 9,764 in June this year.
Despite the efforts, Garuda is still burdened by $1.8 billion in debts, some $422 million of which was handled by the government.
The company, however, said it began to see positive indications of growth, with load factors rising to an average 73 percent in the first half of the year from an average 68 percent last year.
After enduring a net loss since 1990, Garuda said it would be able to book a net profit of $34 million from a predicted $687 million in total operating revenues this year. (cst)