"The first quarter is the low season, but I believed that in the following quarters things will be better," Emir said.
Jakarta (ANTARA News) - The income of national airline company PT Garuda Indonesia in the first quarter this year increased by 23 pct to 717.45 million US dollars (Rp6.45 trillion) from last year`s first quarter of only 588.3 million US dollars (Rp5.29 trillion).

"Garuda`s income in the first quarter this year increased 23 pct to 717.45 million US dollars, with a comprehensive running profit of 4.9 million US dollars", President Director of Garuda Indonesia Emirsyah Satar said in Jakarta Monday.

The increase Emir said was due to a boost in operational performance, but he also believed that demands for flights will increase in the following quarters.

"The first quarter is the low season, but I believed that in the following quarters things will be better," Emir said.

Garuda`s losses in the first quarter this year also amounted to less than 30.43 million US dollars (Rp273.8 billion) in last year`s first quarter of only 6.83 million US dollars (Rp61.5 billion) or less than 77.6 pct.

This condition was due to an increase in the number of passengers of Garuda in the first quarter this year by 25.33 pct to 4.6 million compared to 3.7 million in last year`s same period.

"The number of domestic passengers increased 23.01 pct from 2.6 million in the first quarter of last year to 3.2 million in the first quarter this year, the number of international passengers also increased to 834 thousand last year from only 706.8 thousand, or up by 18.05 pct," Emir said.

He added that early bird booking and booking at Garuda Fair with a discount for the passengers have become a program of boosting the number of passengers.

Garuda`s production capacity also increased 16.5 pct to 8.57 billion from 7.35 billion set kilometers in the same period last year.

"The increase in the number of passengers raised passenger revenue by 27.5 pct to 598 million US dollars," Emir added.

Up to the first quarter this year Garuda has also raised the number of its planes by 64 and nine aircraft for Citilink.

With the new planes, in 2012 the number of Garuda`s aircraft will be 105 with an average operating period of 5.8 years.

"In 2013, the number of Garuda planes will be 128, and 163 in 2014, and 194 in 2015, 33 of which wide bodied, and the rest narrow bodied," Emir said.

With an average price of wide bodied planes standing at 100 million US dollars, and narrowed bodied ones 50 million US dollars, Garuda will need some 11.35 billion US dollars until 2015.

"But one thing is sure, namely that the money is already available up to 2013," Emir said without explaining the planned additional funds for 2014 and 2015.

Earlier, businessman Chairul Tanjung bought the remaining 2.47 billion sheets of IPO shares of PT Garuda Indonesia or 10.88 pct at Rp620 per sheet through PT Trans Airways.(*)

Editor: Aditia Maruli Radja
Copyright © ANTARA 2012