Merpati to fly between Melbourn and Denpasar
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)