Garuda to add 65,028 seats for holidays

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

National flag carrier Garuda Indonesia will add 65,028 seats to its services to anticipate a predicted higher demand during the year-end religious festivities: Idul Fitri, Christmas and New Year.

Of the 65,028 additional seats, 43,998 will come from extra flights and 21,030 as a result of the use of larger aircraft, head of communication Pudjobroto said in a press statement on Friday.

There are a total of 13 routes -- eight domestic and five regional routes -- that will have additional seats during the holiday season.

The routes include return flights from Jakarta to Denpasar, Yogyakarta, Semarang, Surakarta, Padang, Batam, Palembang, Singapore, Guangzhou, Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok.

During the Idul Fitri holiday, additional seats will be available from Nov. 19 to Nov. 30.

For Christmas and New Year, additional seats will be available from Dec. 20 to Jan. 3, 2004.

Pudjobroto said the number of additional seats to be provided by Garuda for this year-end holiday season was more than twice the number of additional seats provided by the firm in the same period last year. Last year, the airline added 30,188 seats to its service during the three religious festivals.

He said the airline would also form a monitoring team to ensure safe and on-time flights for customers during the holiday season.

Garuda will also conduct random checking of tickets to make sure ticket holders are the people whose names are printed on the tickets.