Citilink has rapidly developed into an important
domestic carrier since it began officially operating as a separate
business entity from Garuda Indonesia, sharply increasing its fleet to
support its route expansion.
The Jakarta Post’s Nurfika Osman recently talked with Citilink Indonesia CEO Arif Wibowo
to find out what’s in store for the new airline’s future and to
understand his strategy for success in the competitive aviation
business.
As a new player, what is your main agenda for the coming years to increase your market share of the local routes?
If
Garuda Indonesia has the “Quantum Leap Program”, Citilink has the “Mega
Leap Program”. This program is designed to be the guideline to help the
airline become more competitive in the industry. This program was
implemented last year, along with brand promotion. We undertook a lot of
promotion alongside brand awareness activities to make more people
aware of Citilink because we are the new kid on Indonesia’s air
transportation block.
This year, we are going to implement a
network expansion program to increase our market share. We will increase
our flight frequency from 98 flights daily in 2012 to 215 flights a day
by the end of 2013. We also plan to fly in some of the stores left by
the defunct Batavia Air because they are quite promising. We are
currently processing the routes with the Transportation Ministry.
After
the domestic network expansion, we also plan to start regional flights
in 2014 and 2015 to other ASEAN member countries, as part of our program
to become a leading low cost carrier in 2016. By pocketing permits to
fly 70 domestic and 16 regional routes from the ministry, excluding the
former Batavia routes, we believe that Citilink can become a strong
player in the future.
In addition, to support the Mega Leap
Program, we also have a fleet expansion plan. Last year we only operated
21 aircraft — all Airbus A320s. This year, the number will increase to
35 aircraft with 5 being turboprop ATR 72-600s. Next year, we plan to
operate 60 aircraft because we will put more ATR into operations to
strengthen our network. By the end of 2022, we expect to operate 195
aircraft with around 120 units being A320s.
The fleet expansion
is also part of our program to take advantage of the ASEAN Open Skies
Policy to be implemented in 2015. Some airline operators see the open
sky policy as a threat. On the contrary, we see it as an opportunity, as
through this policy, we will have a better access to enter the region’s
market and open bases there.
What is the biggest challenge for a new comer like Citilink to survive in the country’s tough aviation business environment?
The
competition of this sector is getting tighter every day because every
operator is expanding their businesses to capture the growing demand
from the market. Competition is good for us and it just encourages us to
do more in this business.
But, the biggest challenge I think is
how to distribute our aircraft across the archipelago in order to
create an effective and strong network. It is truly a challenge because
to fully achieve that, we need enough airport infrastructure — such as
terminals, plane parking lots and runways. We also hope that every
airport can operate until midnight or 24 hours if possible because we
need more air slots. (
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