Lufthansa Airlines adds 2 flights a week to Jakarta

JAKARTA (JP): Lufthansa Airlines of Germany has added two flights a week to Jakarta and Air France will follow suit by adding one flight a week, both in anticipation of increasing travel demand to and from the country.

An official at Lufthansa said on Monday that with the two new flights, the airline now served the Jakarta-Frankfurt route seven times a week -- the same number of flights as before the crisis.

The airline said it was upbeat that its Indonesian market would further recover this year after showing signs of recovery last year.

The airline said it recorded a higher load factor last year, an average of 80 percent, compared to 70 percent in 1998.

It aims to keep the load factor at over 80 percent this year.

Meanwhile Air France's customer service manager Nina Soenoto said the airline was considering adding one flight to its current thrice weekly service from Jakarta to Paris.

Nina said the airline had seen signs of market recovery as it recorded a better performance last year, operating at a higher load factor of 80 percent on average.

"Our market has gradually recovered. More Indonesians have started to travel abroad as the economic situation in the country improves. We have begun to receive more group bookings from Jakarta," she told The Jakarta Post.

She said the airline expected to operate at an average load factor of at least 80 percent this year.

Air France currently flies every Monday, Wednesday and Saturday.

Nina said if the market here continued to show significant growth the airline might consider gradually increasing its flights in the near future.

She said until March 1998 the airline used to fly six times, after which it decided to cut down to three times due to the sharp decline in seat demand amid the prolonged economic crisis and heated political turmoil. (cst)