Indonesia's Lion Air to order 10-15 widebodies

By Leithen Francis

DATE:23/11/09
SOURCE:Air Transport Intelligence news


Indonesia's largest privately-owned carrier Lion Air plans to place an order for widebodies and wants first deliveries in 2011.

Lion plans to order 10-15 widebodies and is interested in Airbus A330-300s and Boeing 777-200ERs, says Lion Air president Rusdi Kirana.

The carrier wants first deliveries in 2011 and plans to use the aircraft in the day on busy domestic trunk routes and fly the aircraft at night to destinations in Asia, he says.

They aim to make a decision by the first quarter of next year, he adds.

Indonesian carriers are unable to operate domestically at night because of airport curfews. Rusdi says, for example, that Lion Air could operate a widebody at night from Bali Denpasar to Taipei and have passengers arrive in Bali in the morning.

He says Lion plans to have the widebodies in an all-economy configuration and compete on price.

Rusdi also says Indonesia has plenty of traffic rights available because at the moment "its only Garuda flying internationally" on longer routes.

Lion can succeed on longer international routes because it has the feeder traffic, he adds.

Earlier this month Lion launched services on the Jakarta-Jeddah route using two second-hand Boeing 747-400s that it bought.

Rusdi says its passenger load factor on the route is 90-100%.

Lion's main fleet comprises of 26 Boeing 737-900ERs and it is adding one a month and plans to have a total of 30 by year-end, says Rusdi.

In addition, it has five Boeing MD-80s but these are used as stand-by aircraft and will be phased out mid next year, he says.

Lion has also signed a firm order for 15 ATR 72-500s with the first three aircraft due to arrive in December although an exact date has yet to be set, he adds.