JAKARTA. Low-cost carrier Citilink plans to increase the number of flights from Halim Perdanakusuma Airport in East Jakarta to anticipate an influx of passengers during the Idul Fitri holiday season at the end of July.Citilink president director Arif Wibowo said the carrier would focus on increasing the amount of flights on three of their routes from Halim, and would also be adding two new flight routes, mostly in the 10 days before and after Idul Fitri, which is estimated to fall on July 28 this year.The number of flights that will be increased from Halim fly to Yogyakarta, Semarang (Central Java) and Palembang (South Sumatra). The carrier will also add two new flight routes to Medan (North Sumatra) and Denpasar (Bali) from Jakarta’s secondary airport.“We will increase the amount of flights across these routes, which we see are usually the busiest during the season,” he told reporters on Friday. The newly restored airport of Halim is considered as a supplement for Citilink, which also operates at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, west of Jakarta.Halim began serving commercial flights in January to help ease the heavy traffic flow coming in and out of Soekarno-Hatta.Arif anticipates an additional 30,000 passengers from as soon as July 18, who are mostly participating in the annual mass exodus of Jakartans to their hometowns across the archipelago during the Idul Fitri season.Aside from the increased flights, Arif added that four leased Airbus A320s would be added to the carrier’s armada between June and August.Citilink is expecting a total of eight additional Airbus A320s this year, and is targeting 8.2 million passengers on 11,000 to 12,000 flights by the end of 2014.At the end of last year, the carrier, a subsidiary of state-owned carrier Garuda Indonesia, recorded 5.34 million passengers.In the first quarter of 2014, Citilink recorded 1.6 million passengers and a ticket revenue of US$71.9 million, a 35.3 percent increase from sales in 2013’s first quarter.As an additional marketing effort, Citilink partnered with giant retailer Carrefour Indonesia to open ticket sales counters, where customers could purchase Citilink tickets at Carrefour stores.The inaugural sales counter was opened at Carrefour Lebak Bulus, South Jakarta on Friday.Other plans that the low-cost carrier has include opening and developing new domestic routes from Jakarta to Palu (Central Sulawesi) and Manado (North Sulawesi) in the second half of the year.Arif also said the carrier might open regional routes in the fourth quarter of the year.Possible regional routes include Singapore and Johor Bahru in Malaysia, with the possibility of an Australian city as well.Citilink flies 138 flights per day to 24 cities nationwide. When the company operated as its own business entity in 2012, it only operated 56 flights per day. (dyl)
Citilink to add more flights during Idul Fitri
JAKARTA. Low-cost carrier Citilink plans to increase the number of flights from Halim Perdanakusuma Airport in East Jakarta to anticipate an influx of passengers during the Idul Fitri holiday season at the end of July.Citilink president director Arif Wibowo said the carrier would focus on increasing the amount of flights on three of their routes from Halim, and would also be adding two new flight routes, mostly in the 10 days before and after Idul Fitri, which is estimated to fall on July 28 this year.The number of flights that will be increased from Halim fly to Yogyakarta, Semarang (Central Java) and Palembang (South Sumatra). The carrier will also add two new flight routes to Medan (North Sumatra) and Denpasar (Bali) from Jakarta’s secondary airport.“We will increase the amount of flights across these routes, which we see are usually the busiest during the season,” he told reporters on Friday. The newly restored airport of Halim is considered as a supplement for Citilink, which also operates at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, west of Jakarta.Halim began serving commercial flights in January to help ease the heavy traffic flow coming in and out of Soekarno-Hatta.Arif anticipates an additional 30,000 passengers from as soon as July 18, who are mostly participating in the annual mass exodus of Jakartans to their hometowns across the archipelago during the Idul Fitri season.Aside from the increased flights, Arif added that four leased Airbus A320s would be added to the carrier’s armada between June and August.Citilink is expecting a total of eight additional Airbus A320s this year, and is targeting 8.2 million passengers on 11,000 to 12,000 flights by the end of 2014.At the end of last year, the carrier, a subsidiary of state-owned carrier Garuda Indonesia, recorded 5.34 million passengers.In the first quarter of 2014, Citilink recorded 1.6 million passengers and a ticket revenue of US$71.9 million, a 35.3 percent increase from sales in 2013’s first quarter.As an additional marketing effort, Citilink partnered with giant retailer Carrefour Indonesia to open ticket sales counters, where customers could purchase Citilink tickets at Carrefour stores.The inaugural sales counter was opened at Carrefour Lebak Bulus, South Jakarta on Friday.Other plans that the low-cost carrier has include opening and developing new domestic routes from Jakarta to Palu (Central Sulawesi) and Manado (North Sulawesi) in the second half of the year.Arif also said the carrier might open regional routes in the fourth quarter of the year.Possible regional routes include Singapore and Johor Bahru in Malaysia, with the possibility of an Australian city as well.Citilink flies 138 flights per day to 24 cities nationwide. When the company operated as its own business entity in 2012, it only operated 56 flights per day. (dyl)