Garuda Indonesia Opens Makassar-Hong Kong Cargo Route

Garuda Indonesia Bombardier CRJ1000 aircraft. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

JAKARTA - Garuda Indonesia inaugurated a special flight service for the Makassar-Hong Kong route which is directly connected to cargo flights from Surabaya on Saturday, October 30.

During the operation of the flight, Garuda Indonesia transported at least 12 tons of South Sulawesi's leading commodity in the form of live grouper which was flown in with the Airbus A330-300 fleet.

The special Makassar-Hong Kong cargo route is the development of the Surabaya-Hong Kong route which has been served since early 2021 and is part of the effort to expand the cargo flight network to support increasing the competitiveness of national leading export commodities, especially the Eastern Indonesia region.

This Makassar-Hong Kong cargo flight is the second special cargo flight served from Makassar after previously the Makassar-Singapore route was inaugurated in 2020.

Regarding the opening of this route, Garuda Indonesia President Director Irfan Setiaputra said the expansion of the connectivity of this special cargo route could be one of the business opportunities that will continue to be optimized in line with the growing trend of cargo transportation needs.

He also hopes that this development can be the end of direct export activities from Eastern Indonesia so as to increase and support efforts to accelerate national economic recovery.

"Makassar as an aviation hub in eastern Indonesia has a strategic location as a gathering point for cargo commodity delivery networks in Eastern Indonesia which are connected by direct flights to a number of leading national export commodity producing areas such as Ambon, Kendari, Sorong to Manado," said Irfan in a statement. he wrote, Saturday, October 30.

As for the special cargo flight, this new route serves one flight per week. The plane departs from Juanda International Airport at 05.00 WIB and arrives at Sultan Hasanuddin International Airport at 07.35 WITA.

Next, the plane continued its journey at 09.15 WITA to arrive in Hong Kong at 13.50 local time. "Hopefully the development of this cargo flight service can optimize the distribution of national superior products, especially in facilitating the delivery of marine products from South Sulawesi to be sent directly to export destination countries," said Irfan.

"In the future, we hope that this direct flight will make a positive contribution to increasing the competitiveness of the quality of superior maritime commodity products in South Sulawesi through shorter delivery times so that the quality of the products carried will be more maintained and of course with more competitive logistics costs. exports can become more competitive in the global market," he added.

Furthermore, Irfan explained that throughout 2021 to September Garuda Indonesia recorded the total tonnage of cargo transportation to Hong Kong reaching 807 tons or growing 300 percent compared to the same period in the previous year.

In line with efforts to develop a logistics flight network from the Kalimantan, Sulawesi, Maluku and Papua (Kasulampua) areas, previously Garuda Indonesia has also flown special cargo flights on the Surabaya-Banjarmasin-Balikpapan route with a frequency of 6 times per week using the B737-800NG fleet where the average The average transportation of hatching eggs and general cargo commodities reaches 13.5 tons per flight.

"Along with the increasing trend of national export growth as recorded by the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) throughout 2021, of course, Garuda Indonesia as a flag carrier is always committed to continuing to optimize the connectivity of international cargo flight networks in order to support export activities of leading commodities and SMEs through activities direct call to revive the national economy," he concluded.