Merpati to fly between Melbourn and Denpasar
JAKARTA (JP): State-owned Merpati Nusantara Airlines will link Melbourne and Denpasar, Bali, starting today.
Company spokesperson A. Tondo Widodo said yesterday that Merpati, a subsidiary of the national flag carrier Garuda Indonesia, would fly an Airbus A-310-300 aircraft between Denpasar and Melbourne four times a week.
She said the airplane had been serving Melbourne directly from Jakarta.
"The Jakarta-Denpasar-Melbourne flight is every Wednesday and Friday. The Melbourne-Denpasar-Jakarta (flight) is every Thursday and Saturday. Meanwhile, the Jakarta-Melbourne-Jakarta direct flights are every Monday and Tuesday," Tondo said.
Merpati competes with its sister company, Garuda, and several overseas airlines to serve Australia. Other airlines linking Indonesia and Australia include Qantas (Jakarta-Sydney and Jakarta-Perth), Garuda (from Jakarta to Brisbane, Cairns, Perth, Melbourne, Sydney and Darwin), Sempati Air (Jakarta-Perth) and Ansett (Jakarta-Sydney, Denpasar-Perth and Denpasar-Darwin).
Merpati has changed its A-310 jet's seat configuration from its original capacity of 220 seats to only 186 seats to provide passengers more comfort.
Merpati's manager in Bali, Hartono Soerono, predicted that the load factors for the Denpasar-Melbourne and vice versa services would reach 70 percent in the first year. "The figure is estimated to reach 90 percent and 100 percent in the second and third operation years."
He said that Merpati originally planned to start linking Jakarta and Melbourne via Denpasar last Wednesday.
"But the plane from Jakarta was loaded with all passengers designated for Melbourne, so the plane flew directly from Jakarta to Melbourne," Antara news agency quoted Hartono as saying.
He said the company would launch a series of promotions to attract more passengers,
Merpati has launched several international services as part of its campaign to bolster its image.
The government has approved Merpati's program to increase its overseas services, although it is known as a carrier which serves mostly domestic feeder routes and it 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 in remote areas.
Tondo said that Merpati was planning new routes including a Jakarta-Singapore route which it would introduce on Jan. 29. This service would use an A-300-600 aircraft.
Company president Budiarto Subroto said recently that Merpati also planned to serve Jakarta-Hong Kong, Jakarta-Seoul, Denpasar- Bangkok and another service to Nagoya or Hiroshima in Japan later this year.
Besides its service to Australian cities, Merpati also links Bandung in West Java and Singapore seven times a week and Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur seven times a week. (icn)