Aviation Industry Indonesia: Lion Air Eyes 15% Air Passenger Growth
Indonesian low-budget airline Lion Air targets to see a 15 percent year-on-year (y/y) increase in air passengers to 38.25 million in 2017, from 33.26 million passengers that were carried by the airline in the preceding year. Daniel Putut, Director for Business Development at the Lion Air Group, said the airline will need to achieve this target without expanding its fleet size, which currently numbers 113 units. Lion Air, founded by Rusdi Kirana, is one of the biggest airlines of Indonesia, dominating the low-budget segment.
Lion Air is part of the Lion Air Group. Other units of this group - active in Indonesia - are Batik Air and Wings Air. The Lion Air Group also has stakes in Thai Lion Air in Thailand and Malindo Air in Malaysia. Kirana said his group plans to form three new airlines in Vietnam, Australia and India. Besides simply expanding its business, this strategy will also serve to improve its international connectivity. In the second half of 2017 the Lion Group is planning to team up with a private party in Vietnam to establish a new flight operator in Vietnam (the Lion Group will have a 49 percent stake in this partnership). Despite the minority stake, this new Vietnamese airline will have the Lion Air Group logo on its aircraft (as is the case with Thai Lion Air and Malindo Air).
Meanwhile, the Lion Air Group also plans to expand in Australia using its full service airline Batik Air. The group's operations in Australia could grow from currently one route to five routes (by the end of 2017), and perhaps to ten routes by the end of 2018. In late-2016 Batik Air secured the Australian Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) approval and may serve several destinations in Australia somewhere in the future, from both Bali and Jakarta.
Lion Air Aircraft:
| Type of Aircraft |
Number |
| Boeing B737 | 108 |
| Airbus A330 | 3 |
| Boeing B747 | 2 |
| Total | 113 |
Source: Investor Daily