Lion Air receives more new Boeing aircraft

Novan Iman Santosa

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Indonesian privately-owned airline Lion Air will soon be operating the first 30 Boeing 737-900ER out of the 178 aircraft it has ordered from the American aircraft maker, the airline said in statement recently.

Three aircraft, with registration numbers PK-LGM, PK-LGO, and PK-LGP have arrived at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport on Monday while another one, PK-LGQ, is scheduled to arrive on Dec. 22 to augment the existing fleet of 26 aircraft of this type, the airlines said in a media release obtained by The Jakarta Post.

“The aircraft is designed for today’s air transport needs with longer range, faster, lower noise, more environmentally friendly and more economical,” the airline said.

“The aircraft is equipped with [electronic] devices allowing it to have higher landing accuracy, a better all-weather radar system and deployment of winglets to increase stability and fuel efficiency.”

Lion Air’s Boeing 737-900ER aircraft is configured to carry 220 passengers in an optimum single-class layout.

The airlines said it chose the aircraft for its range of 3,200 nautical miles or 5,900 kilometers.

The aircraft will be deployed to increase flight frequency on existing routes as well as to replace other types of aircraft.

Currently Lion Air operates MD-90s, Boeing 737-300s and 737-400s for domestic and regional routes as well as larger Boeing 747-400 jumbo jets for its route to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia. This makes Lion Air an all-Boeing operator.

For domestic routes, flight frequency on the Jakarta-Denpasar route will be increased to seven times daily, Jakarta-Surabaya will have 11 daily flights while the Jakarta-Medan route will fly 14 times daily.
Regionally, the Jakarta-Singapore route will be served six times daily.

“The new aircraft will also allow Lion Air to open new routes in the eastern part of Indonesia such as the Makassar-Luwuk, Makassar-Manokwari and Makassar-Sorong routes,” the airline said.

Meanwhile, Lion Air has successfully flown the Jakarta-Jeddah direct route daily since Nov. 7 making it the first Indonesian private airline to fly the route.

Lion Air claims a load factor of 96 percent for the route in the past two months.

First published on The Jakarta Post on Thursday, Dec. 17, 2009