Garuda Indonesia Adds One Plane To Support Operations At Christmas And New Year

Photo: Doc. Garuda Indonesia

PT Garuda Indonesia (Persero) Tbk brought in an additional aircraft type Boeing 737-800NG from Jordan. This aircraft will increase the number of fleets operated by Garuda Indonesia during the Christmas 2024 and New Year 2025 (Nataru) periods.

The aircraft is the first fleet of four additional fleets that Garuda Indonesia plans to bring in until early 2025.

President Director of Garuda Indonesia, Military Commander Tsani Panjaitan, revealed that the operation of the PK-GUF fleet is part of the implementation of the planned addition of fleets that continue to be optimized amid efforts to increase Garuda Indonesia's production capacity.

The military commander said the plane with the registration code PK-GUF arrived at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport on November 30, 2024. Currently undergoing fleet preparation procedures to support flight operations during the peak season season at the end of this year.

Furthermore, the Military Commander said that the additional fleet officially operates with a special livery design Aku Cinta Indonesia on the GA-512 flight on the Jakarta-Pontianak route which was flown from Soekarno-Hatta International Airport at 11.20 WIB and arrived at Supadio Airport at 13.00 WIB.

"The addition of this fleet is also our effort as a national flag carrier to answer the community's need for safe and comfortable air accessibility which is increasing, especially during the Christmas and New Year 2024/2025 holidays," said the Deputy Minister in an official statement, Thursday, December 19.

The military commander said that with the operation of this additional fleet and another B737-800NG fleet that will arrive in Jakarta by the end of December 2024, Garuda Indonesia by the end of this year will operate around 73 fleets.

Details of 43 narrow body Boeing 737-800NG fleets, 22 wide body Airbus A330 Series fleets, and 8 wide body Boeing 777-300ER fleets.

"We hope that the initiatives that we carry out through the production capacity strengthening program can be a catalyst for the development of the flight network that we continue to carry out in a sustainable manner in responding to the increasing growth of air travel and are predicted to continue to grow," said the Military Commander.

The military said that Garuda Indonesia Group continues to strengthen flight operational readiness ahead of the peak season 2024 and New Year 2025 periods, especially in ensuring the readiness of fleets and various flight support facilities.

In this peak season period, Garuda Indonesia Group prepared at least 1.4 million aircraft seats consisting of 741,514 Garuda Indonesia flight seats and 717,560 Citilink flight seats.

During this year's peak season period, Garuda Indonesia Group operated at least 8,199 flight frequencies with a fleet of 94 fleets ready, consisting of 58 fleets from Garuda Indonesia and 35 fleets from Citilink.

Meanwhile, there are 316 extra flights prepared to meet Denpasar, Lombok, Medan (Kualanamu), Surabaya, Semarang, and Singapore flight routes. Meanwhile, Citilink added 210 additional flights, including for a number of leading destinations such as Denpasar, Medan (Kualanamu), Lombok, and Solo.

"This figure will certainly continue to move dynamically along with the trend of people traveling later, especially those who choose air transportation modes as an option in their mobility to destinations," he said.

Garuda Indonesia also projects that passenger movements during the peak season period of Nataru will increase by at least 24 percent compared to 2023.

Several flight destinations that are projected to have a high occupancy rate are Denpasar, Sorong, Manado, Kualanamu, Jayapura, Pontianak, Surabaya, Yogyakarta, and Lombok for domestic routes, as well as Singapore, Haneda, and Narita for international routes.

"And we estimate that the peak of the holiday flow will take place on December 21 and January 5," said the Military Commander.