Sriwijaya Air Plans New Routes to Boost Passenger Numbers
Jakarta. Indonesian budget airline Sriwijaya Air and its subsidiary, Nam Air, will add new international and domestic routes this year in a bid to increase their total passenger numbers by more than a third, a director said.
The two airlines expect to carry a combined total of 15 million passengers this year compared with 11.2 million last year, which would account for nearly 13 percent of all international and domestic air passengers in the country.
The Ministry of Transportation estimates that Indonesia will have 115.8 million air travelers in 2017.
"By looking at the current market potential, we are optimistic that the total number of passengers that can be transported on Sriwijaya and Nam Air will reach 15 million this year," Toto Nursatyo, commercial director at Sriwijaya Air, said on Monday (18/03).
Sriwijaya Air is competing with Lion Mentari Airlines, the operator of Indonesia's largest budget airline, Lion Air, for a dominant stake in the market. Wings Air, a subsidiary of Lion that operates turboprop aircraft on short-haul routes, is Nam Air's main competitor.
To beef up its fleet, Sriwijaya plans to add 15 new aircraft by the end of this year, including two wide-bodied Boeing B777s, seven single-aisle Boeing B737s and six ATR turboprop airplanes, Toto said.
The company plans to deploy the ATRs to serve passengers traveling between Papua and Sulawesi, while the two Boeing B777s will be used to fly passengers to Saudi Arabia for umrah, or the minor pilgrimage. At the end of umrah season, the company plans to divert its Saudi Arabian routes to China to make the most of that emerging market.
"Umrah lasts eight months until the hajj season, when we will reroute our planes to China," Toto said.
Chinese tourists are set to overtake Singaporeans as the most frequent visitors to Indonesia, data from the Ministry of Tourism showed.
Roughly 1.45 million Chinese tourists visited the archipelago in 2016, up 27 percent from a year earlier. The number of Singaporean tourists fell 6.3 percent to 1.47 million over the same period.
After the addition of new aircraft and the decommissioning of others, Sriwijaya and its subsidiary expect to have 65 by the end of 2017, Toto said. The company currently operates 52 aircraft on 55 domestic and international routes.
Sriwijaya Air previously said it would fund this year's expansion with the sale of 25 percent of its enlarged capital through an initial public offering in May.
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