Garuda Indonesia plans to redirect all its European flights to go via Singapore from late March.
Speaking to Flightglobal in an interview, commercial director Handayani says the Indonesian flag carrier will operate six-times weekly on Jakarta-Singapore-Amsterdam and five-times weekly on Jakarta-Singapore-London Heathrow.
The carrier now operates twice-weekly on the Jakarta-Singapore-Amsterdam route, and thrice-weekly on the Jakarta-Amsterdam-London Gatwick route.
Handayani attributes the move to two factors: connection opportunities at Singapore's Changi Airport and runway issues at Jakarta's Soekarno-Hatta International airport.
Asked if the airline will retain the Singapore stopover on outbound flights to Europe once the runway issues at Indonesia's main gateway are resolved, Handayani says the airline will “wait and see”.
“We will evaluate how we are going to maintain the routes. Whether we’re going direct to London and Amsterdam, or maintain [a partial amount of flights] through Singapore,” she adds.
In 2013, Garuda postponed the launch of services to London from November 2013 to May 2014, citing issues with the pavement strength at the Jakarta airport. To operate its Boeing 777-300ERs at full capacity - carrying 314 passengers and 27t of cargo - the aircraft would be above the weight limits of Soekarno-Hatta's apron and runway.
Source: Cirium Dashboard
