News from Garuda

Garuda Indonesia is pleased to announce the launch of a third frequency in its daily schedule of flights between our hub in Jakarta and the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur.

The first flight of the new afternoon/evening service will be on February 19th 2012 and will be operated daily using a Boeing 737-800NG aircraft.  

The new service will operate to the following schedule:

• GA 816, will depart daily from Jakarta's Soekarno-Hatta Airport at 14:30 and is due to arrive in Kuala Lumpur International Airport at 17:35.
• GA 817 will depart daily from Kuala Lumpur at 18:40, arriving in Jakarta at 19:45.

The Aircraft will carry the new ‘Nature’s Wing’ livery and include the new signature interior.

On all flights between Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur passengers will be able to enjoy upgraded on-board services such as individual touch-screen LCD TVs with Audio-Video on Demand entertainment systems.

From March 1, 2012, Garuda Indonesia will reduce daily flights from Jakarta to Amsterdam (via Dubai) to four times a week. Garuda will now fly every Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday from Jakarta, and every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday from Amsterdam. using an A330-200 with a capacity of 36 seats in business class and 186 in economy class.

At the same time Garuda Indonesia continues to broaden its international regional network with new services from Denpasar to Tokyo (Haneda) from April 27, 2012 and from Jakarta to Taipei from May 19, 2012. In addition beginning in February 2012, Garuda Indonesia will also increase the frequency of the Jakarta –toKuala Lumpur from twice daily to three times a day.

Garuda Indonesia will fly the Denpasar – Haneda (Tokyo) route five times a week (Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday). Flights are scheduled to leave Denpasar (GA 886) at 15.30 WITA arriving in Haneda at 23.30 LT. On the return flight, GA 887 will depart from Haneda at 01.00 LT and arrive in Denpasar at 07.00 WITA. To serve the route, Garuda operates an Airbus 330-300 which has a capacity of 257 passengers (42 in the executive class and 215 in economy class).

Daily flights from Jakarta – Taipei vv will depart from Jakarta (GA 852) at 23.45 WIB and arriving in Taipei at 06.15 LT. The return flight from Taipei (GA 853) will leave at 07.15 LT and arrive in Jakarta at 11.35 WIB, which will use a Boeing 737-800 New Generation (NG) with a seating capacity of 156 seats, comprising 12 seats in executive class and 144 seats in economy class).

Concurrently  Garuda Indonesia plans to close the Denpasar to Nagoya service from April 10, 2012.
Domestic flights will be added with Jakarta to Batam increasing from four times to five times per day and Jakarta to Pekanbaru increasing from five times to six times per day plus Bandung –to Surabaya will start on february 10, 2012.

The Bandung to route will be flown served daily. with GA 361 leaving Bandung at 14.35 LT and arriving in Surabaya at 15.45 LT, later GA 360 departs from Surabaya at 12.35 LT and arrives in Bandung at 13.50 LT. Garuda will operates a Boeing 737-500 with a seating capacity of 96 seats (12 in executive class and 84 seats in economy class) on the route. Garuda Indonesia customers from Bandung will be able to continue their flight with easy onward connections to Bali and Makassar, via Surabaya.

Previously in October, Garuda Indonesia has also increased the flight frequency on a number of other routes, specifically from  Denpasar to Sydney has increased from six times to seven time a week; Denpasar to Seoul has moved from five times to daily, Jakarta to Melbourne has grown from  three times to four times a week and Denpasar to Melbourne has moved from four times to five times a week.

Also since the end of December 2011, Garuda has increased flights on the Jakarta to Shanghai service, from five times a week to seven times a week; flights on the Jakarta to Beijing service from three times to five times a week, and on the Jakarta to Seoul service, from six times to daily.

Garuda Indonesia has confirmed an order  25 new Airbus A320's worth a book value of $2.13 billion in Airbus aircraft. The order will comprise of 10 x  A320neo's and 15 Standard A320's. The aircraft are due to be utilised by the Garuda low cost subsidiary, Citilink which will add international destinations like Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia and Australia to its network. Garuda have predicted that the number of passengers traveling on Citilink would reach 8.3 million in 2015, from an estimated 2 million this year and Garuda is on course to carry 35 million passengers in 2015, (including those flying with Citilink). 

"We are pleased to welcome Garuda Indonesia as a new customer for the A320 Family," said John Leahy, Chief Operating Officer, Customers, Airbus. "Citilink will benefit from the proven reliability, passenger appeal and low operating costs that make the A320 Family the single aisle market leader. We look forward to providing the airline with every support as they introduce their new fleet." 

Garuda Indonesia  has posted a strong net profit of IDR 515.5 billion for the calendar year of 2010, in a year which saw a large-scale development and investment program and the arrival of 24 new aircraft.

The Airline has reported that in 2010,  it had a total operating revenue of IDR 19,534 trillion, this is an increase of 9.4 percent compared to the previous year’s IDR 17,860 trillion.

The total number of Passengers carried in 2010 also increased from 10.3 million in 2009 to 13 million in 2010.

Availability seat kilometer/ASK rose from 21.7 billion seat kilometer in 2009 to 25.7 billion seat kilometer. Meanwhile, passenger yield rose from USC 7.5 in 2009 to USC 8.6 in 2010.

Passenger load factor dropped 1.5 percent, from 73.1 percent in 2009 to 71.7 in 2010, while the airline’s On Time Performance was 80.2 percent.

In 2010, Garuda Indonesia brought in 24 new aircraft, consisting of 23 Boeing 738-800 Next Generation and one Airbus A330-200 to boost its plans of expanding network coverage and improving service quality. The new fleet generation of fleet now averages 8.2 years whereas before it was 10.4 years old.

With a younger fleet at its disposal, since 2010 Garuda Indonesia has increased and opened new domestic and international routes, among them direct flight from Jakarta - Tokyo, Jakarta - Sydney, Jakarta - Melbourne; Jakarta - Palu, Jakarta - Ambon, Jakarta - Ternate; as well as reopening flight services to Europe/Amsterdam in June 2010.

Thanks to ongoing service quality enhancements, in 2010 the airline not only became a four-star airline and won the “World’s Most Improved Airline” title from Skytrax, UK, it was also awarded the “Airline Turnaround of the Year” from the Center for Asia Pacific Aviation (CAPA), Australia.

Good news for travellers bound for Indonesia: Garuda Indonesia is adding four Jakarta-Sydney return flights to its weekly schedule. The airline will use its Airbus A330-200 aircraft on the route, in Executive (business) and economy class. Total flight time is just under eight hours.