Merpati expands Singapore service
SINGAPORE (JP): State-owned Merpati Nusantara Airlines has increased its services to Singapore by inaugurating return Jakarta-Singapore flights in a bid to grab a greater share of the regional air transport market.
On Sunday Merpati commercial director Agus Riadi said Merpati, which served mainly domestic routes, said the new route would help promote the airline in the Asia-Pacific region.
Merpati inaugurated the daily Jakarta-Singapore route Saturday by operating its 86-seat Fokker F-100 aircraft.
"We understand that Merpati is facing tough competition, but we can't strengthen ourselves by serving only domestic routes," Agus said.
Merpati currently links Singapore with four other Indonesian cities. They are Bandung (West Java), Padang (West Sumatra), Pekanbaru (Riau) and Pontianak (West Kalimantan).
He said the Jakarta-Singapore route was very competitive with airlines catering to holiday makers, businesspeople and people visiting friends or relatives.
Merpati marketing director Toto Nursatyo said Merpati expected at least a 50 percent load factor on the new route during the first quarter this year.
"We expect to have the load factor increase gradually, but please don't ask me the expected maximum figure," he said.
He said Merpati, which departs Jakarta at 7.05 p.m. for Singapore and returns at 10.35 p.m. daily, expected 60 percent of the new route's passengers to be Indonesian and 40 percent Singaporean.
Merpati is competing with its parent company Garuda Indonesia, Sempati Air and a number of leading overseas air carriers like the Netherlands's KLM, Air France, Thai Airways, Australia's Qantas, Germany's Lufthansa, Singapore Airlines and Singapore's Silk Air.
Several other foreign airlines like Pakistan Airlines, Air India, Emirates, Royal Jordanian Airlines and Myanmar Air also serve the Jakarta-Singapore route.
Planned routes
Agus said Merpati looked for passengers' potential needs in its Singapore service.
"For instance people can fly Merpati from Singapore to Jakarta and return to Singapore from Bandung or vice versa. People can also fly Merpati from Kuala Lumpur to Jakarta and return to Singapore from Jakarta or Bandung," he said.
Merpati which has more than 400 domestic flights a day has limited regional flights to Kuala Lumpur and the Australian cities of Melbourne, Darwin and Port Headland.
Merpati plans new routes including Jakarta-Hong Kong, Jakarta- Seoul, Jakarta-Jeddah, Denpasar-Bangkok and another service to Japan later this year.
Merpati serves mainly domestic feeder routes and does not have much money. The airline's development mission, assigned by the government, has inhibited the airline because it limits the airline to serving pioneering, uncommercial routes to remote areas.
The company is also inefficient because its fleet has many types of planes. Merpati's maintenance costs were unusually high because of the variety of aircraft in its 80-plane fleet, comprising Airbus A-310-300s, Boeing B-737-200s, F-28s, F-27s, ATPs, Casa-212s, Twin Otters and CN-235s. Most are old.
Minister of Transportation Haryanto Dhanutirto announced recently Merpati suffered an estimated Rp 137.12 billion (US$58 million) loss last year, a bigger loss than the Rp 132 billion in 1995. The airline is expected to turn this around with a Rp 993 million profit this year.
About 50 passengers were aboard its inaugural flight to Singapore.
Travel agency executives said Merpati should have scheduled its flights earlier in the day. (icn)