SIA's Indonesian routes

SIA's Indonesian routes

We would like to thank you for the article SIA expects lower
traffic on Indonesian route on page 12 of The Jakarta Post on
Feb. 13, 2001. Allow me to make a few comments to balance the
points made in the article.

Contrary to the title of the article, Singapore Airlines (SIA)
is confident about its Indonesian routes. The size of our
operations bears clear testimony to this. If we did not have
confidence, we would not be operating more than 120 flights a
week to Indonesia.

To counter the fall in attractiveness of Indonesia as a
tourist destination, we have been working closely with the
Department of Culture and Tourism and the tourism industry to
work toward the revival of tourism into Indonesia.

Back in 1998-1999, during the height of the crisis, Singapore
Airlines and its subsidiary Silk Air sponsored tour operators,
hoteliers and tourism officials to attend the important overseas
travel fairs (like ITB Berlin, World Travel Mart, PATA and the
Millennium Travel Fair) to promote Indonesia. We also launched
the Bali Spectacular, which attracted tourists to Indonesia at a
time when the publicity coming out of Indonesia was particularly
bad.

To further strengthen our commitment, we signed a Tourism
Promotion agreement on March 23, 2000, with the then state
minister of tourism and arts, aimed at developing and promoting
Indonesian tourism, and restoring the image of Indonesia as a
tourism destination in the eyes of the international world. The
program makes available US$4 million over two years to enable
tour operators and travel writers to come and see for themselves
what tourism potential Indonesia has, and to assist the
Indonesian tourism players to travel overseas to promote the
country.

SIA makes available free and rebated travel, cargo discounts
and excess baggage, and advertising and promotional materials to
the amount of $3 million, while the Indonesian authorities
contribute $1 million in the form of hotel accommodation and
ground arrangements in Indonesia. At the same time, SIA also
initiated a training program for travel agents, worth Rp 3
billion over three years, in partnership with ASITA, to raise the
level of professionalism of the travel agents so as to be
prepared for a challenging future. The initial result of both our
tourism promotion and training efforts are encouraging.

The slight decline in our load factors on the Singapore-
Jakarta route in the first two months is understandable, given
the sharp peak we had in December, and the current news reports
from Indonesia. We are confident though that traffic will return
in the medium term, as the situation stabilizes. We intend to be
here, and to offer the capacity that will be needed.

RAJA SEGRAN

General Manager Indonesia

Singapore Airlines

Jakarta