Indonesia AirAsia to start new flights, boost services on existing routes

Indonesia AirAsia is starting new flights as well as increasing the number of flights on the existing routes.

The carrier will start flying from Denpasar in Indonesia to Perth in Australia from July 17, 2009; from Jakarta to Saigon in Vietnam and from Jakarta in Indonesia to Manila (the Philippines) in September 2009; and daily flights between Jakarta and Manila from September 2009.

Indonesia AirAsia is a budget carrier based in Jakarta, Indonesia, and the Indonesian associate airline of the Malaysia-based low-cost airline AirAsia.

Dharmadi, president-director of Indonesia AirAsia, told reporters that the airline hoped that the demand for low-cost air travel would stay in 2009 and that it could attract a considerable number passengers travelling between Jakarta and Manila.

At present, the Jakarta-Manila route is dominated by Cebu Pacific, the low-cost airline based in the Philippines.

Indonesia AirAsia, according to Dharmadi, will double the existing Jakarta-Singapore and Denpasar-Singapore flights to 4 times a day.

While flights on the Bandung-Singapore route will be raised to 2 while flights a day, the service on the Bandung-Kuala Lumpur route will go up from 2 flights a day to 3 flights a day.

Later in August and September 2009, Dharmadi said, Indonesia AirAsia would add new regional routes as a part of the carrier’s strategy to shift services from “mainly domestic routes to mainly regional ones.”

As of now, while 80% of flights of Indonesia AirAsia is domestic, the rest 20% is regional. The airline said it was intending to change this to 75% and 25%, respectively.

Indonesia AirAsia also is planning to close domestic routes from Jakarta to Batam, Balikpapan, Padang and Ujungpandang. However, it will keep its domestic routes from Jakarta to Surabaya, Denpasar, Medan, Pekanbaru and Bandung.

The airline, according to its president-director, will replace its entire fleet of Boeing aircraft with Airbus aircraft as a part of its strategy to cater to the increasing demand for short-haul travel. It aims to have a fleet of 45 all-Airbus aircraft within the next 5 years.

Indonesia AirAsia had announced earlier that it would launch nearly 10 international routes to Indonesia in 2009.