Despite The Many Competitors, Garuda Indonesia Optimistics Improves Cargo Business Services Starting In The First Quarter Of 2023

Garuda Indonesia aircraft. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

JAKARTA - The recovery rate of Garuda Indonesia passengers has begun to recover. In fact, it has reached 80 percent for domestic routes.

In line with this increase in passengers, there has been a decline in performance at goods or cargo transportation services.

President Director of Garuda Indonesia, Irfan Setiaputra, said that there had been an increase in the number of passengers for domestic routes. Meanwhile, international routes are still limited.

"Domestic is around 80 percent. Internationally, the number of our passengers is still below 60 percent. This is compared to before the pandemic," he told reporters, written Tuesday, December 27.

Meanwhile, for goods or cargo transportation services, Irfan admitted that there was indeed a decline compared to the previous year. There are several reasons, one of which is the increasing number of competitors.

"Logistics has indeed decreased some time ago. Cargo yes. There are several things, one of which is because there are more competitors," he said.

Irfan also said that now Garuda Indonesia is no longer allowed to carry cargo in the cabin over passengers. In fact, previously it was still allowed. So that the price is not competitive.

"Our flight to China is increasingly limited. Last year we were allowed to fly planes carrying cargo to China and put cargo in the upper cabin. Now it's no longer allowed, just below and making the price uncompetitive compared to before," he said.

Even so, Irfan is optimistic that in the first quarter of 2023, his party can improve cargo services in line with the addition of flight frequency.

"Actually, yes, if there is an overall, there is a decrease in cargo. But we hope that in the first quarter of 2023 we can fix it again with the addition of our frequency," he explained.

Previously reported, Irfan said, consistently his company managed to record increasingly promising growth in cargo transportation. Until May 2021, Garuda Indonesia Group managed to record cargo transportation growth of up to 35 percent compared to the same period in 2020.

Furthermore, said Irfan, this consistency is in line with the performance of the cargo business at the end of 2020 where the company managed to record air cargo traffic which touched the level of 99 percent of cargo transportation performance in the period before the pandemic.

"With this positive growth trend, Garuda Indonesia will continue to optimize fleet utilization for the expansion of its cargo flight network to support direct call activities for leading export commodities and MSMEs from various parts of Indonesia. One of them is through the operation of two passenger fleets that now serve a number of domestic and international cargo flights," he said.