Garuda to stop Jakarta-Jeddah flight via Batam

JAKARTA (JP): National flag carrier Garuda Indonesia will discontinue its Jakarta-Batam-Jeddah-London flights in October due to the lack of passengers.

The airline's general manager for Batam Iskandar Basro said yesterday there had been a poor response to the Jakarta-Batam- Jeddah service since its launch last October.

Garuda Indonesia originally planned to ply the Jakarta-Jeddah- Batam-London route three times a week but was forced to reduce the frequency to once a week.

"Even this weekly flight has suffered from a low load factor because passengers bound for Jeddah or London do not see any benefits of boarding in Batam," Basro was quoted by Antara as saying.

Indonesian travelers boarding at Batam have to pay the Rp 250,000 exit tax similar to travelers through other airports in Indonesia.

"I think competition from Singapore's Changi airport which is very close to Batam (20 minutes by ferry) is one main reason behind Batam's unpopularity," Basro said.

He said Garuda stopped its Jakarta-Manila flight via Batam in July due to a poor load factor.

The airline also plans to stop its Bali-Paris route due to the small number of passengers.

But despite the poor load factor through Batam, this small island has become increasingly popular as a hub for air freight services.

Garuda and Korean Air yesterday inaugurated their joint freighter service using MD-11 freighter to Batam.

Previously, the joint air cargo services used A-300 jets with a capacity of 40 tons and plied the Jakarta-Seoul-Los Angeles route.

The cargo service yesterday used MD-11 freighter with a capacity of 70 tons and expanded its route to Jakarta-Seoul-Los Angeles-Seoul-Batam.

Garuda, on the government's insistence, planned to shift more of its international flight services via Batam instead of via Singapore.

Garuda's president Sopandi said last October that his company planned to move its transit point from Singapore to Batam because Batam's Hang Nadim airport offered 48 percent cheaper ground- handling fees and between 5 percent and 15 percent cheaper aviation fuel than Singapore's Changi airport.

Meanwhile, several travel agents in Yogyakarta have complained about Garuda's plans to reduce its 16 flights a week from Europe to Indonesia to nine flights a week from Nov. 1.

Chairman of the Association of Indonesian Travel Agencies in Yogyakarta Nugroho Suprapto said yesterday that he learned of the plans from the association's representative in Paris.

Nugroho said the reduction would include some flights to Rome, Paris and Zurich.

He lamented the planned flight decrease because the French market for Indonesian tourism was growing rapidly.

"France, with a population of over 40 million people, is a potentially big market in the future," he said.

Garuda, which lost Rp 122.8 billion (US$42.34 million) in the first half this year, is restructuring its international service route. (08)