Mandala Airlines to lease two more jets

Mandala Airlines to lease two more jets

JAKARTA (JP): Mandala Airlines later this year will aquire two
more Boeing B-737-200 aircraft, bringing the number of such
planes in its fleet to nine.

Finance Director Veronika H. Subarkah told reporters here
yesterday that the airline will lease the two aircraft for four
years from the Anglo-American firm GCAS for a leasing fee of
between US$100,000 and $150,000 per aircraft per month.

"One of the two airplanes will be delivered during the first
semester of this year and the other one in the second semester,"
she said, adding that the jets were manufactured after 1981.

Mandala currently operates seven B-737-200s on routes from
Jakarta to 10 cities, including Medan, Padang,Palembang,
Yogyakarta, Denpasar and Surabaya.

Veronika said that her company had ordered 20 N-250 aircraft
from state-owned aircraft producer PT Industri Pesawat Terbang
Nusantara (IPTN).

Mandala is currently cooperating with PT Trigana Air Service,
a private charter airline, to run the latter's two Fokker F-28s
on routes from Jakarta to Pontianak in West Kalimantan and Jambi
in southern Sumatra.

Veronika said yesterday that her company planned to operate
two more F-28s owned by Trigana later this year, which would be
used to link Jakarta and Palangkaraya in Central Kalimantan and
Jakarta and a city in Sumatra.

"We're also cooperating with Transmile, a private airline in
Malaysia," she said. "From early this year, Mandala has been
running B-737-200 aircraft belonging to Transmile on routes from
Medan, Jakarta and Surabaya to Kuala Lumpur."

She said that Mandala's load factor last year reached 65
percent.

Veronika said that to improve service to customers, Mandala
had computerized its reservation system.

The software for Mandala's reservation system was supplied by
Garuda Indonesia, while the hardware was supplied by Netframe of
the United States through PT Ekamatra Kirana.

Mandala's president, Rear Marshall Subagiyo, said that the
computerized system would soon be applied for passenger check-in
and baggage handling. (icn)