Mandala Airlines ads on Changi Airport

To improve the awareness, one of Indonesian airlines, Mandala Airlines has chosen the airport advertising company Eye to assist promote their brand at the Singapore Changi Airport.

This ad is scheduled to begin broadcasting from 30 August 2010 until the end of November 2010. According to the Eye they also are negotiating the possibility of long-term advertising contracts with Mandala Airlines. This advertisings are designed to aim passengers during high season and was publicised about Mandala Airlines direct flights to Jakarta and Balikpapan.

"Ads are displayed by Eye is Mandala Airlines as an airline that is consistent with the target audience. And in our opinion, is there a better way to promote the profile of the airlines to the tourist other than by advertising at the airport?" said Junice Liew, head of marketing, Eye Singapore. "The Mandala Airlines has selected the Eye as one excellent example for a strong marketing strategy and combined with strategic product placement to reach the right audience sets in their environment and travel industry”.

Adrian Hamilton-Manns, CEO of Mandala Airlines, added: "Partnering with Eye allows us to tell everyone that there is a new airline from Indonesia that offers low fares and great value. We do this by advertising in the airport. Since the ad publicised, then we examined a significant growth in demand through our website”.

Picture:google.com

AirAsia : “No Fuel Surcharge”

The airline company, AirAsia still want to strengthen the implementation of the policy of no fuel surcharge, although other airlines company intend to increase their fuel surcharge as world crude oil prices is increasing. The largest low cost airline cheap in Asia is committed to continue providing affordable tickets for all level.

"AirAsia not impose fuel surcharge in November 2008 and we have no intention to enforce back," said Dharmadi, President Director of Indonesia AirAsia. "Strong sales of our seats and additional revenue to address the growing problem of rising fuel prices. We continue to innovate to help reduce costs and ongoing development of various strategies to increase revenues," said Dharmadi.

Dharmadi  emphasized, increasing the fuel surcharge may be the easiest solution. However, the benefits are temporary. AirAsia also receive additional revenue from its products, such as luggage Supersize, AirAsia Insure, AirAsiaGo, AirAsia Courier, Pick a Seat, and AirAsia Megastores.

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Mandala Airlines threatened degraded

Ministry of Transportation requested PT Mandala Airlines to immediately increase the number of its aircraft until the end of 2011. If not, the airline is threatened liquidated or degraded into charter airline in early 2012.

Director General of Civil Aviation Herry Bakti S Gumay reminded Act No. 1 / 2009 about Aviation, requires that all scheduled airline company has to operate a minimum of ten aircraft began in 2012. Five of the aircraft must be owned status, and other five aircraft may rent.

According to Herry many of Mandala Airlines planes has returned to the lessor  as the company policy. "The aircraft rental rates once considered too expensive, so Mandala Airlines looks for a new lessor. Currently Mandala only operate five units planes and all its are rental," said Herry. The five aircraft operated by Mandala Airlines are Airbus A320s and A319s. Herry added that if Mandala Airlines can not buy five planes more until the end of 2011, they must merge with another airline or turned into charter airline.

On June 21, Mandala Airlines has launched Online Fly’n Shop and  Diono Nurjadin – President Director of Mandala Airlines-  mention until the end of this year they will operate ten aircrafts. Currently Mandala Airlines has order 25 of Airbus A320s which will arrival based on the company needs. "Indeed for time being all of our aircraft are lease. But until the end of 2011, we will comply with a minimum of five owned aircraft and five chartered planes," said Diono.

Mandala Airlines has open many new international routes. For instance, on June 25, the airline serving the route from Jakarta to Singapore and Balikpapan to Singapore using Airbus A320 aircraft with a capacity of 180 seats. Followed by opening a route from Jakarta to Hong Kong on July 19, 2010 and from Jakarta to Macau in July 21, 2010 using an Airbus A319 with 144 seats capacity.

This year the target of Mandala Airlines can transport of 4 million passengers. Rose by 500,000 passengers compared to the realization of 3.5 million passengers last year.

Batavia Air will open Denpasar-Perth route

Batavia Air plans to open a new route from Denpasar to Perth in November 2010. According to President Director of Batavia Air, Yudiawan Tansari, currently they are waiting for the certainty of the Ministry of Transportation Directorate General of Civil Aviation relating to permit flights.

"On November we will be ready to fly to Australia. We are currently awaiting permission from the government. Up to now divide of the rations 4000 additional seats airline flights to Australia for those interested from government unfinished yet. " Yudiawan Tansari said in Jakarta on Tuesday (14 / 9).

To accommodate the new flight route, Batavia Air will operate Airbus A320 with a capacity of 180 seats. The flight will be one times every day. Batavia Air needs around 1260 seats each week.

The above seats number is the same number of seats required by Sriwijaya Air which also to open new routes from Jakarta to Perth, by using Boeing 737-800 NG. However, these seats is greater than the needs of Garuda Indonesia Airlines and Air Asia plans to increase frequency. Garuda Indonesia Airlines plans to increase frequency of flights to Jakarta-Sydney as many as 666 seats and the Jakarta-Melbourne as many as 444 by operating Airbus A330-200 with a capacity of 222 seats.As for Air Asia requires 720 seats to the route Denpasar - Darwin that have been operated with an Airbus A320 carrying 180 passengers helpless.

Yudiawan said, if the Denpasar - Perth route get permission from the government, next year it will also re-opened two new routes to Austrlia, such as the route Denpasar – Melbourne and Denpasar – Sydney.

Wings Air and Lion Air operate 5 new routes

The airline company Lion Air and Wings Air will operating five new routes to Bali, Nusa Tenggara, and Kalimantan began earlier this month.

According to General Director of Lion Air, Edward Sirait, Wings Air is to operate four new routes, Semarang - Denpasar, Denpasar - Mataram, Denpasar - Tambolaka, and Denpasar-Bima. While the Lion Air, will add one new route, Surabaya - Palangkaraya. Wings Air will use the new aircraft ATR72-500 (propeller) with a capacity of about 72 seats for this five new routes. Meanwhile, Lion Air flights to Palangkaraya for time being served with Boeing 737-400 jets.

"The route Semarang – Denpasar and Denpasar - Mataram served by Wings Air started operating since September 6, 2010. The route was flown twice in one day," Edward Sirait said. The route Denpasar - Tambolaka served four times a week, on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. While the Wings Air route from Denpasar to Bima served three times a week, on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Lion Air's new route from Surabaya to Palangkaraya done once a day, starting Tuesday (Sept 7, 2010). Semarang - Denpasar flight was operated by the transit in Surabaya before, will be increased flight frequency of once daily.

"Lion Air and Wings Air in synergy continues to develop services for the domestic flight and international operations. But for now the market development will concentrate on domestic flights to meet the domestic air transportation market which is still quite large in the entire archipelago," said Edward.

In addition to increasing revenue and expanding markets, development of flight operations into the eastern region of Indonesia such as Bali, Sulawesi Tenggara, and Kalimantan, he said, was intended as an effort to encourage economic growth in the region. In addition, with the opening of new routes, it is expected the tourism sector in these areas will continue to rise.

Edward predicted, the load factor or the level of passenger plane filled five new routes will reach 90% with passengers from all segments of the target. Development of flight operating new routes are also planned with the addition of the frequency of flights to increase the capacity of the aircraft. That, he said, made possible because of the increasing new fleet of jet and propeller both owned airlines.

4 of 12 Indonesia airports excess capacity

Aviation industry and the number of passenger planes in Indonesia continues to grow significantly even beyond the capacity of existing airports. According to PT Angkasa Pura II (Persero) or AP II, four of the twelve airports under its management have excess capacity. According to Director of AP II Tri S Sunoko the four airports which excess the capacity are Soekarno-Hatta Cengkareng - Jakarta, Polonia - Medan, Sultan Thana - Syafiuddin Jambi and Minangkabau Airport - Padang.

Polonia Airport in Medan, North Sumatera with a capacity of 900 000 passengers, are now serving 4.9 million passengers per year. Then Sultan Thana which has a capacity of 700 000 passengers have 900,000 passengers per year. While the Minangkabau Airport has served 2.8 million passengers per year, while its capacity is only 1.2 million passengers. "While the Soekarno-Hatta airport has a capacity of 22 million passengers have been serving 37 million passengers in 2009. That's why we will continue to increase the capacity by build a new airport terminal," said Tri.

The airport development projects and the construction of the new airport is ready to be done is Polonia Airport, which will be replaced with Kualanamu Airport. In the next two years, the airport is ready for use.

Last year, Lion Air has the domestic passengers at most 13.3 million (30.7%), Garuda Indonesia, as many as 8.39 million (19.28%), followed by Batavia Air around 6.10 million (14.02%) . While for the international route, most dominant is Garuda Indoensia Airlines with transporting 2.21 million (44.74%), followed by Indonesia AirAsia 1.98 million (40.09%), and the third position Lion Air around 383 584 passengers (7.74%).