INDONESIA: Batik Air will launch international service

(AFP) - Thursday, an airline owned by Indonesia's Lion Group announced it will launch international services, starting with a flight from Jakarta to Singapore, later this year.

Batik Air, belongs to Lion Group, which also owns Indonesian budget carrier Lion Air. The chief executive Achmad Luthfie of the company said they want to launch the first international flights for Batik Air by November or December.

The airline, which operates as a full-service carrier, offering to its customers meals and drinks already, puts at service 2 categories of class seating: business and economy. Batik Air began operations in May last year, servicing domestic destinations above the whole Indonesia.

"Our first international destination will be Singapore and we aim to have more than a daily service on the route", Luthfie said in a statement.

"We chose Singapore as our first international destination, because we can see that demand continues to increase" he added.

Speaking at a news conference in Singapore, Luthfie said Batik Air intends to choose as next route of airborne flight from the Indonesian capital to Kuala Lumpur, in Malaysia.

Luthfie also said that eventually the routes will extend and it is looking to fly also to Southern China and Western Australia.

On the domestic front, the airline plans to extend to more than double its network - reaching 22 destinations, including Palembang, Solo and Batam.

Luthfie sustained that the carrier is currently filling 90 percent of seats.

So far, Batik Air operates six Boeing 737-900ER aircraft and is based in Jakarta's Soekarno-Hatta airport.

Six planes, branded Airbus A320, and four Boeing 737-800 model planes will be delivered by the end of this year.

Indonesia, a sprawling archipelago of over 17,000 islands cutting across three time zones, is counting strongly on air transport, due to geographic nature and also due to infrastructure. The country is experiencing a sharp development in its aviation sector, thanks to a rapidly rising middle class.

SOURCE