Airline News
Garuda reports $51.4 million third quarter profit and governments limits movements at Soekarno-Hatta
October 30th 2015
Garuda Indonesia has reported a net profit of $51.4 million for the nine months ended September 30, sharply reversing losses in the year-ago period, helped by lower fuel prices and cost reductions, from $3.08 billion to $2.72 billion, due to its Quick Wins program. Read More » The outlook for the rest of the year remains positive, Garuda said, as the October-December period was a seasonally strong quarter due to the year-end holidays.
Arif Wibowo, the flag carrier’s president director and chairman of Indonesia National Air Carriers Association, said Garuda’s profit could have been higher if it not been affected by the haze from Indonesian forest fires that have blanketed Southeast Asia in the past few months. He said the haze cost Garuda approximately $8 million in lost sales and other expenses. Around 120,000 passengers had cancelled their flights in September alone, Wibowo said.
Garuda has increased its load factor from 70.7% in 2014 to 77.3% in 2015 and its on time performance was 88.2% of all flights departed with an aircraft utilization of 09:11 hours.
In the third quarter, Garuda increased its domestic market share to 44% from 37% in 2014, while its international market share reached 28%, an improvement from the previous year of 22%.
At press time, the Garuda Indonesia Group operated 181 aircraft: eight B777-300ERs, 22 A330-200/300s, two B747-400s, ten ATR72-600s, 15 CRJ1000s, 88 B737-300/500/800NGs, and 36 A320s, with an average age of 4.7 years. By the end of 2015, the Group will have 187 aircraft; 143 at Garuda's and 44 at its Citilink budget subsidiary, with an average age of 4.3 years.
Separately, Indonesia will reduce the number of flights allowed per hour from Jakarta's Soekarno-Hatta airport because of safety concerns, Reuters has reported, citing Muzaffar Ismail, director for aircraft operations at the transportation ministry.
To help ease the work load on air traffic controllers at Soekarno-Hatta, the ministry has cut the number of movements at peak times from up to 72 take offs and landings per hour to 62. "With the high frequency of flights, there is a greater risk of collisions and accidents," Ismail said. However, the changes are not expected to reduce the total number of take-offs and landings each day, as more flights will be scheduled during off-peak hours.
Experts have asked how a reduction in flights would fix Indonesia's air safety problems. "If 72 flights an hour were not safe, then why did they approve them in the first place?" said Jakarta-based aviation consultant Gerry Soejatman. “Instead of mitigating the risk, they seem to be avoiding the risk."
