Defeating Garuda Indonesia, Lion Air Becomes 'King Of Air' During The Pandemic Period

Lion Air aircraft. (Irfan Meidianto / VOI)

JAKARTA - The COVID-19 pandemic has not weakened the competition between Garuda Indonesia and the Lion Air Group. Competition between these airlines remains high, even though the airline industry is battered by the pandemic in 2020.

Based on data from the Ministry of Transportation (Kemenhub), Lion Group has managed to outperform Garuda Indonesia in the realm of domestic routes throughout 2020. The airlines under the command of Rusdi Kirana recorded better performance, seen from market share and the number of passengers served.

As is known, the COVID-19 pandemic that entered the country on March 2, 2020, made the government close access to foreign nationals (WNA). Thus, the airline industry only serves domestic routes.

Cumulatively, the Lion Air Group, which consists of three airlines, namely Lion Air, Batik Air, and Wings Air, managed to transport up to 21.48 million passengers or has a market share of up to 60.6 percent.

However, if you look at an annual basis (year on year / yoy) this achievement has fallen to 46.2 percent. Even so, the numbers weren't bad. This is because this achievement illustrates that the Lion Group succeeded in convincing the majority of air transport passengers during the pandemic to use their services.

Meanwhile, Garuda Indonesia and Citilink Indonesia only managed to carry 10.04 million passengers with a market share of 28.3 percent. Their market share has actually decreased compared to the 2019 realization of 34.5 percent.

President Director of PT Garuda Indonesia Irfaniaputra said that it cannot be denied that the COVID-19 pandemic has an impact on decreasing market share and the number of airline passengers.

Regarding efforts to improve market share, Irfan said that his party is trying to increase the number of passengers. However, this year the company will focus more on improving services to increase public trust in its airline.

"We focus on ensuring that flights with Garuda are safe and comfortable. We are not too focused on market share," said Irfan, when contacted by VOI, Wednesday, March 10.

Garuda Indonesia aircraft. (Irfan Meidianto / VOI)

For your information, in terms of the percentage decline in revenue and passengers in the past year which was experienced by the company, it has reached its lowest point of up to 90 percent. Garuda even had to reduce a number of flight frequencies without having to close the route.

The strategy that made Lion Air succeed in winning over Garuda

Contacted separately, Lion Air Group Corporate Strategic Danang Mandala Prihantoro said one of the strategies to attract passengers' trust to choose to fly using the airline was to develop entertainment onboard.

The entertainment offered includes various films, playing games, reading magazines and much more. For this period, the most interesting thing was watching free films from genres such as Indonesia, Hollywood and Korean films.

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This entertainment, said Danang, is connected via wireless inflight entertainment (W-IFE) from AirFi (PT Dua Surya Dinamika) which is accessed from all smart phones (smartphones), tablets, laptops with an operating system (OS) - system software that manages sources. power such as iOS, Android, Windows, BBM, Linux and others

"Entertainment with each passenger's gadget or device is one of the efforts to prevent the spread of COVID-19 so that passengers can enjoy the entertainment that is served comfortably and safely," he said.

Then, said Danang, his party also announced that the flying campaign was safe. By ensuring that all flight operations are carried out in accordance with the aspects of safety, security and are guided by health protocols.

Illustration of situation at the airport. (Photo: Unsplash)

The entire fleet is equipped with High Efficiency Particulate Air (HEPA) filters or powerful particle filters. HEPA filters help keep the air in the cabin clean and filter more than 99.9 percent of viruses, germs, insects and bacteria. The air inside the aircraft cabin is renewed every 2-3 minutes, making it fresher. For air from the toilet (lavatory) and kitchen (galleys) directly flowed out of the plane.

In addition, said Danang, his party also carried out regular cleaning and sterilization activities for Lion Air aircraft using the Aircraft Exterior and Interior Cleaning (AEIC) method which was carried out at the Batam Aero Technic (BAT) aircraft maintenance center and at various airport bases (bases). station) where the Lion Air plane is located.

Danang said this was done because domestic routes were still a market that had to be served. Because people still travel by air during the pandemic.

"The strategy this year is still carrying out what has been done in 2020. In terms of the convenience of health services to entertainment. This is because we are still in the framework of analyzing the market during the pandemic alert period. This year we also have optimism for a better aviation market trend. , "he said.

Gradually opening up the old route

Throughout 2020, the airline has also consistently maintained its market share along with the opening of potential route operations. The old route has also been reopened gradually after the spread of COVID-19 is considered to be decreasing.

Batik Air aircraft. (Irfan Meidianto / VOI)

It was recorded that starting in August 2020, Danang said Lion Air was keen to expand domestic routes, including Medan Kualanamu-Bandung, Bandung-Denpasar, Denpasar-Medan Kualanamu, Balikpapan-Bandung, Bandung-Balikpapan, Makassar-Bandung, and Bandung-Makassar.

Then, Pekanbaru-Bandung, Bandung-Pekanbaru, Palembang-Bandung, and Bandung-Palembang. Wings Air has also done the same by opening the Makassar-Tana Toraja, Makassar-Palu, Kupang-Ruteng, and Kupang-Lewoleba routes.

Danang said the important key to maintaining market share is to collaborate with health facilities to facilitate rapid antibody test services, which last year was still a requirement for flights.

"We have responded to the changes in different travel regulations adaptively by inviting partners to offer a test price of Rp. 95,000 per passenger," he said.

Furthermore, Danang said Mbak for 2020, there are 97 locations for antibody rapid test services in accordance with applicable regulations. Each passenger will receive a certificate of medical test results electronically (digitally) and integrated with an electronic health alert card (eHAC) platform as one of the completeness of flight documents.

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