Lion Air Operates in Eastern Indonesia

The number of air passengers of Indonesia`s eastern provinces may increase significantly and has prompted Lion Air to tap the potential market by operating Boeing 737-900ER aircraft, a spokesman said. The number of air passengers the eastern provinces of Indonesia may increase by more than 25 percent a year, while those in the western parts of the country had been growing by 6.8 percent to 7 percent a year, he said.

“The market potential in the eastern parts of Indonesia is quite high, and our crew will give the passengers the best services,” the airline company`s public relations manager, Hasyim Arsal Alhabsi, said during the maiden flight of the company`s second Boeing 737-900ER from Jakarta to Ambon on Tuesday in a report for the Antara News.

Passengers occupied most of the 213 seats of the new Boeing 737-900ER during the flight from Jakarta to Ambon via Surabaya and from Ambon to Jakarta via Surabaya, on Tuesday.

The second Boeing 737-900ER airliner will also serve the Jakarta-Denpasar route.

Lion Air operated its first Boeing 737-900 ER on the Jakarta-Manado route earlier this month.

Lion Air would have seven Boeing 737-900ERs by the end of this year, Hasyim said, adding that the third one would arrive in Indonesia on July 15, 2007.

Meanwhile, head of the Maluku transportation agency Benny Gazpers had asked Lion Air to its increase flight frequencies from Jakarta to Ambon starting June 29, when President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono attended the 14th National Family Day anniversary commemoration in the capital of Maluku province.