May Buy As Many As 60 Jets

Officials with Adam Air, an Indonesian low cost carrier, are planning a fleet expansion with a plan that could increase its size from 50-to-60 jets in the next five years, according to AFP.

Adam Air, a privately owned airline operating from Jakarta, began operation in 2003 and is the largest low fare airline in Indonesia's market by passenger number.

"We plan to add more planes to our fleet, four or five additional aircraft, each year. So in five years we will have about 50 to 60 aircraft. Right now we have 23," said Adam Air spokesman Danke Dradjat.

Dradjat said that Adam Air has not made a decision to fly only Boeing 737 series jets, or make a switch to Airbus aircraft. He indicated that the "terms and conditions" that are offered by the world's two largest commercial aircraft manufactures will be deciding factors in the jet type for its expansion. Adam Air had previously offered its plan to expand with Airbus aircraft, according to a company press release.

Dradjet did not offer cost estimates for the fleet expansion or a timeframe for delivery needs, but added that the rapid expansion of other low cost carriers in India and China were making it harder to obtain lease aircraft and causing costs to soar, forcing Adam Air to look for a fleet purchase deal.

Adam Air opened a new domestic route this week to Banjarmasin, the capital of South Kalimantan province on Borneo Island, and was studying opening flights to Ambon and Kupang in the east, Dradjat said.

Passenger numbers have resumed to previous levels after one of its jetliners crashed into the sea on New Year's Day, with average passenger loads at 92 percent'" Dradjat said. The disaster killed 102 people, as reported by ANN.

"We had quite a bad time the first and second month after the accident, but then conditions rebounded very quickly, especially after the Garuda accident when people saw it could happen to any airline," the airline spokesman said.

FMI: http://www.adamair.co.id/