une 7, 2011
Indonesian flag carrier Garuda Indonesia plans to announce an order of 25 aircraft with a capacity of 180-190 seats each at the Paris Air Show this month, its chief executive said on Tuesday.
The president and CEO, Emirsyah Satar, said in an interview that the state-owned carrier also plans to announce a deal to buy up to 25 regional jets with fewer than 100 seats each as early as the third quarter.
He declined to name which manufacturer will be chosen for the larger plane, but the Boeing 737 series, a family of jets with models that match the required capacity, makes up the largest number of aircraft in Garuda's fleet.
"For the sub-100 seater, which is right now in process, we are going to order some regional jets. These are either the Bombardier or Embraer," Satar said on the sidelines of the annual meeting of the International Air Transport Association in Singapore. "That one is going to be towards Q3 of this year or early Q4," he said referring to when the deal would be signed.
Satar said the 180-190 seat aircraft would be used by Garuda's domestic subsidiary, Citilink, and the carrier would place "25 (aircraft) on firm order and another 25 on option," with delivery starting 2014.
On the expansion of Garuda's network, Satar said the airline was looking to add flights to Taipei, Australia, China and India as well as increasing frequencies on the popular route between Jakarta and Singapore from the current eight times daily.
However, Satar said Garuda will not fly to any European destination other than Amsterdam now. It also flies to Australia, Dubai and several destinations in Asia.
Garuda, which went through an initial public offering earlier this year, has been aggressively expanding its network and improving the quality of its services in recent years. In the first quarter, the carrier's capacity was more than 40 percent higher than a year ago.
This year, the company will take delivery of 11 new aircraft, of which nine are Boeing 737-800s and the rest are Airbus A330-200s.
(Reuters)
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