Garuda Indonesia plans big expansion, to change corporate logo

Garuda Indonesia, the national airline of Indonesia, is planning an ambitious expansion after the European Union (EU) has lifted a ban on the carrier that had been imposed on grounds of safety. The European Union had, in June 2007, clamped a blanket ban on all airlines based in Indonesia following a series of fatal crashes, including the crashlanding of Garuda Indonesia’s Boeing 737 plane in March 2007 in which 21 people died.

The five-year-long expansion plan – named ‘Quantum Leap’ – includes the airline nearly doubling the number of planes it has, as well as increasing by about half the destinations to which it flies within five years, Emirsyah Satar, chief executive officer of Garuda Indonesia, said in a statement.

Despite the global financial depression and the mounting competition, Satar added, Garuda Indonesia will go ahead with its expansion plans in a “prudent manner.”

Garuda Indonesia will also use a new corporate symbol in an effort to “enhance its image.”

The new brand design – which differs little from the old design – has a bigger image of the corporate symbol of the mythical bird garuda. The new banner ‘Garuda Indonesia’ will use a shorter, dark-grey font.

Under the ‘Quantum Leap’ plan, the flag-carrier airline of Indonesia will enhance its domestic and international destinations from 41 to 62, by 2014. To achieve this goal, the size of the fleet will go up from 62 aircraft to 116 aircraft.

Garuda Indonesia has on order three Airbus A330-300 aircraft, 1 Airbus A330-200, 26 Boeing 737-300 panes, and 10 Boeing 777-300ER aircraft.

This huge expansion, Satar added, is expected to raise passenger numbers to 27.6 million from 10.1 million in 2008.

Garuda Indonesia, which at present is mainly a domestic and regional airline, is aiming to launch many long-haul services within the next few years.

The airline, which last flew to Europe in 2004, will begin service to Europe again in April-June 2010 using new Airbus A330-200 aircraft.

The carrier said in a statement that it also expects to increase the number of its flights to the Asia-Pacific region.

It is planning to launch the Jakarta-Melbourne service in August 2009 and the Adelaide-Denpasar (Bali) flight in November 2009.

In addition, it is considering air services to other international destinations such as Tokyo, Sydney, Shanghai, and Seoul.

Garuda Indonesia had announced earlier that it will restart its services to the Netherlands in 2009, and possibly to London and Frankfurt later.

Garuda also plans to expand its domestic routes.

Meanwhile, Garuda Indonesia said it achieved a 10-fold rise in profits in 2008 on account of increases in revenue as well as passenger numbers.