Revenue Grows Positively In The First Quarter Of 2024, Garuda Indonesia Focuses On Increasing Production Margins And Capacity

Illustration (Photo: Doc. ANTARA)

JAKARTA PT Garuda Indonesia (Persero) Tbk (GIAA) continues to optimize performance acceleration steps after completing restructuring steps at the end of 2022 and posted a solid business performance basis for the 2023 performance year.

Meanwhile, Garuda Indonesia recorded a group revenue growth in the first quarter of 2024 with a growth of 18.07 percent to USD 711.98 million compared to the same period in the first quarter of 2023 of around USD 602.99 million.

The contribution of increasing operating income in the first quarter of 2024 was also driven by revenue growth on scheduled flight lines of 18.19 percent to US $ 599.01 million. The amount of scheduled flight income represents 84.13 percent of the total operating income achieved in the first quarter of 2024.

In addition, unscheduled flight growth also shows promising potential with growth reaching 53.57 percent to 19.67 million US dollars. On the other hand, other income lines also show consistency in growth by recording an increase of 11.92 percent to 92.28 million US dollars.

President Director of Garuda Indonesia, Irfan Setiaputra, said that this achievement is an important function for Garuda Indonesia's business performance in the midst of bookkeeping performance in the early quarter of this year.

"In the quarterly performance known as the low season period for the aviation industry, the Company as a group also recorded a net loss in the first quarter of 2024 of 86.82 million US dollars, which showed a downward trend of 21.10 percent compared to a large loss record in the first quarter of 2023 of 110.04 million US dollars," he explained in his statement, Wednesday, May 1.

Irfan revealed that the step to improve business performance continues to be optimized by strengthening the Company's performance facilities, one of which is through increasing production and margin capacity.

"We are making these efforts by helping to strengthen business portfolios, both through the expansion of the flight network, increasing passenger traffic, optimizing anchorry income lines, to implementing cost leadership in a sustainable manner to encourage more agile and adaptive business performance in optimizing potential income." he explained.

During the first quarter of 2024, Garuda Indonesia group also recorded consistency in increasing flight frequency to 39.7 thousand flights or growing by 15 percent compared to the number of flight frequencies in the first quarter of 2023.

Irfan said that this growth was also aligned with the commitment to maintain level of safety in the focus of intensification of fleet maintenance throughout the first quarter of 2024 in line with the increase in flight frequency.

"This is undeniable to be reflected through an increase in operating expenses which are also contributed by the optimization of fleet maintenance carried out by Garuda Indonesia", explained Irfan.

According to Irfan, operational performance also shows a strong performance basis, where Garuda Indonesia Group carries a total of 5.42 million passengers along the 1-2024 Quarter, or an increase of about 19 percent compared to the number of passengers in the first quarter of 2023.

Meanwhile, this number consists of 2.42 million Garuda Indonesia passengers as the mainbrand and 3.00 million Citilink passengers. Passenger traffic during that period also recorded a significant increase, passengers on international flight routes recorded a growth of 47.59 percent compared to the first quarter of 2023, to 536,441 passengers.

Irfan said that the significant growth of international route passengers was a promising outlook and indicated the recovery momentum for international flight traffic for Garuda Indonesia in 2024.

"We will continue to optimize this in the future with various efforts to increase flight frequency in a measured manner in line with the increase in market demand," said Irfan.

In terms of Seat Load Factor (SLF) achievements, until the end of the first quarter of 2024, Garuda Indonesia recorded an average occupancy rate of 74.66 percent. Meanwhile, in terms of cargo transportation, Garuda Indonesia managed to record cargo growth of 16 thousand tons of cargo dominated by domestic cargo shipments.

In line with efforts to increase production capacity, Irfan revealed that in 2024 the Company will focus on optimizing operating income through a number of corporate actions, including Garuda Indonesia targeting fleet strengthening with the addition of 8 aircraft consisting of 4 narrow bodies of the Boeing 737-800NG type and 4 wide-body types Boeing 777-300ER (2) and Airbus 330-300 (2) which will come gradually throughout 2024 to maximize passenger occupancy levels and support the expansion of both domestic and international flight networks.

Irfan explained that with performance facilities that gradually continue to show consistent recovery, including through measured equity improvement measures, his party is optimistic that 2024 will be a monumental year in the acceleration of Garuda Indonesia's business performance.

"In line with the projection of IATA which predicts the aviation industry in 2024 will gradually complete its recovery phase," explained Irfan.

Irfan expressed that this optimism was also reflected in the projected growth target of Garuda Indonesia passengers throughout 2024, which increased by at least 40 percent compared to the achievement of Garuda Indonesia's total transportation in the previous year.

"A number of challenges in the aviation industry in 2024 are our focus in accelerating performance, including related to supply chain in the aircraft industry sector and its support, currency exchange rate volatility, to aviation price fluctuations which we continue to mitigate through various strategic approaches to business expenses management and are also tightened by optimizing profitability," explained Irfan.

Irfan said that departing from performance achievements that show efforts to improve and expand the potential for business development that can be maximized in the post-pandemic phase, his party is optimistic about pursuing the acceleration of adaptive company performance, agile so that it is ready to become a profitable business.

"This is also in line with our optimism amid the operational readiness of Hajj flights which will begin in the 2-2024 quarter and a number of explorations of strategic collaborations with corporate partners such as codeshare cooperation with Qatar Airways through the operation of the Jakarta Doha route, additional flight frequency on flight routes with positive performance, optimization of ancillary revenue, expansion of the cargo market share and optimization of the performance of its subsidiaries' close to Irfan.