Malindo Air brings forward operations date to mid-March
3 Nov 2012 04:34:56
biz.thestar.com.my
PETALING JAYA: Malindo Air which is supposed to start flying May next year has brought forward the launch date to mid-March and will begin with domestic flights and a month later it will expand to offer international flights with its first stop being India, said PT Lion Grup chief Rusdi Kirana.
In a telephone interview, he said that he had decided to delay the launch of Indonesia's Batik Air from March to year-end in 2013 because he wanted to focus on building Malindo to become regional player sooner.
"œWe will delay Batik Air launch because we can now use Malindo to fly international routes. You must remember that Indonesians like to fly the world via Kuala Lumpur, Singapore or Bangkok and Lion Air, being the biggest domestic carrier can be a feeder for Malindo for the international connectivity," he said.
"œIt is possible for us to bring forward the launch date because the aircraft meant for Batik Air will now be allocated to Malindo. Batik Air was only going to offer point to point services but we are more keen to have a hub in KL to move traffic beyond KL.
"œWe now fly the most number of points within Indonesia and imagine the traffic volume that we can bring from all these destinations into KL and beyond to countries such as Thailand, China, India, Vietnam and Hong Kong," he said, adding that "œWe would fly where the Indonesians like to go and the feed will be from Indonesia."
Read full story: biz.thestar.com.my
