Regional airlines heading for more promising years

Hendarsyah Tarmizi, Jakarta

Airlines across the Asia Pacific have started to gain strength after passing through a series of challenges ranging from terrorist attacks, war in Iraq, the outbreak of SARS and the global economic slowdown during the last few years.

The recovery in the tourism sector during the past several months has resulted in a surge in global air traffic, paving the way for a repeat of the boom in the aviation industry that took place before the turn of the millennium four years ago.

According to data issued by the International Air Transport Association (IATA), air traffic increased by 9.6 percent in the first quarter of this year, much higher than IATA's forecast of 6.9 percent.

The Center for Asia Pacific Aviation (CAPA) believes that airlines across the Asia-Pacific region should post a double- digit traffic growth provided that SARS does not once again spiral out of control.

The higher than expected increase in air traffic during the first three months of this year will certainly provide a healthier ground for the region's airlines to take advantage of the world's more promising industry, particularly for Asia.

The World Trade Organization (WTO) estimates that total arrivals in Asia, which reached 121 million in 2001, will increase by 250 percent to 416 million in 2020.

Taking advantage of the promising outlook, the region's major airlines are expanding both their long and short-haul flights to take a larger share of the growing aviation industry.

Singapore Airlines (SIA), for example, made a milestone in aviation history with the inauguration the world's longest commercial non-stop service between Singapore and Los Angeles with the A340-500 aircraft on Feb. 3.

SIA will break its own record for the world's longest non-stop commercial flight with the launch of a non-stop service between Singapore and New York, with A340-500 aircraft in June, this year.

"In addition, SIA will also introduce a new service to Ahmedabad, the major commercial center of India's Gujarat province in July," SIA's public relations manager in Jakarta, Glory Henriette said. She added that an increase in the frequency of flights was also planned for Brisbane, Guangzhou, Ho Chi Minh City, Melbourne and Seoul.

With such flight expansion, SIA, which serves the Singapore- Jakarta route eight times daily will offer 60 destinations in 33 countries, including Denpasar and Surabaya.

In 2003, SIA's carriage of passengers and capacity production dropped by 12,8 percent and 11.4 percent, respectively, compared to the previous year due to the drop in demand for travel and a corresponding cutback in capacity during the SARS outbreak.

However, the airline is optimistic that long-haul business remains promising. SIA acknowledges that the operation of four budget airlines in Singapore this year and the growing number of similar no-frills airlines in neighboring countries will slightly affect yields from its short-haul flights.

Like SIA, Hong Kong-based Cathay Pacific Airways will also launch a daily non-stop service from Hong Kong to New York beginning July 1, with its ultra long haul A340-600.

In addition, Cathay has recently added passenger services between Hong Kong and London, Auckland, Johannesburg, Colombo, Osaka, Taipei and Sapporo and resumed services to Beijing.

Cathay has booked continued growth in passenger and cargo traffic in recent months. "In April, for example, we carried 1,099,183 passengers, up from 1,036,623 in March," said Ida Sylviana, the assistant manager for marketing and passenger sales in Jakarta.

Meanwhile the Taiwan-based Eva Air airline which recently increased its Taipei-Hong Kong services from 40 flights to 49 flights per week, has added a fifth brand-new Airbus A330-200 to its fleet as part of the airline's fleet expansion program.

The new passengers aircraft serves EVA's Osaka route and is also used in rotation for some flights to Macau. Another four new A330-200s are being used for flights to Vienna in Europe, Brisbane in Australia, and Tokyo, Hong Kong, Macau and Bangkok in Asia.

"We can use the A330-200s to fly direct from Taipei to every destination we serve in Asia, and additionally, because of its extended range, to serve passengers on our non-stop trips to Brisbane and Sydney," EVA Air's senior vice president K.W. Nieh said in a press release.

Australia's Qantas Airlines also announced recently that it planned to commence non-stop services from Australia to Mumbai in India and Shanghai in China beginning Sept. 1, this year.

In addition, Qantas also plans to commence direct flights between Brisbane and Los Angeles from June 14, the first non-stop scheduled service on that route.