Merpati expands Singapore service
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)