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Sunday, November 27, 2011

Indonesia still on the latest EU Ban - No change in exempted carriers


The new list of airlines banned from EU member countries airspace was released on 21 November 2011 and reveal no change to the exemption list for Indonesian carriers:
Regular Carriers: Garuda Indonesia, Mandala Airlines, Indonesia Air Asia, Metro Batavia
Non-Regular Carriers: Airfast Indonesia, Express Transportasi Antarbenua

The number of fatal accidents appear to be rising again this year. Is there a decline or is it just bad luck?

Saturday, November 26, 2011

Turnaround and look to the future - Garuda Indonesia


Enough gloating about getting the 4-star Skytrax ranking! I wait until 2014, let's hope Garuda gets the 5-star then. So what's happening between now and then? It's good to finally see a presentation that answers most of everyone's question on how is this quantum leap going to be done from tomorrow... with this video appearing on YouTube:




Nice to finally see (albeit very briefly) the First Class concept for their future 777-300ERs, and their fleet strategies... And oh, 2013 for the 777-300ER introduction? Finally Garuda can get a proper long-haul service again!


The new Medan hub plans is now out in the open. This could make the Europe - South East  Asian market very interesting should they use Medan as a Europeean route scissor-hub... that is, if the new airport can be completed!


It looks like Garuda is still proud of their "Audio & Video On Demand in every class", I guess that's because no domestic competition has that!

Indonesian version of GerryAirways launched




Since a lot of my writings are relevant to Indonesia, I think it is no surprise that I am launching the Indonesian version of the blog.


GerryAirlines is the Indonesian version of the blog and can be accessed at http://gerryairlines.blogspot.com


I hope this will make it easier for my Indonesian readers to follow my writings. Unfortunately, the subdomain of Gerrypedia is not available, probably much to the disappointment of my readers from Indoflyer.net, but what to do? The show must go on. Enjoy!

Friday, November 25, 2011

Getting awesome 5th Freedom Rights and allegations of giving away our sovereignty


I recently read an article by a well respected political and aviation observer in Indonesia. I guess whenever an Indonesia vs Malaysia topic comes up, it won't take long for someone to pour gasoline to the bonfire!

Before we start, what is a 5th Freedom Right? 
Fifth Freedom of the air is the right to fly between two foreign countries during flights while the flight originates or ends in one's own country. 

In the current round of bilateral negotiations between Indonesia and Malaysia, each country agrees to open up 3 airports for onward 5th Freedom Rights where:
  • Indonesia is to allow, through Jakarta, Makassar, and Bali:
    • 5th Freedom for Malaysian carriers operating to Australia, with a combined maximum of 7 return trips a week.
  • Malaysia is to allow, through Kuala Lumpur, Kuching, and Kota Kinabalu:
    • 5th Freedom for Indonesian carriers operating to:
    • Asia, with a combined maximum of 36 return trips a week
    • Europe, with a combined maximum of 14 return trips a week.
    • Middle East, with a combined maximum of 21 return trips a week
    • United States, with a combined maximum of 14 return trips a week.

By the looks of it, it looks like that we got a total bargain! We give 7 return flights, and gain 85 frequencies in return! So why are the blind nationalists complaining?

Their gripe: "Oh they got big places like Makassar and Bali, and we got little places like Kuching and Kinabalu". "We should have got Penang, then it would be fair!". "We should get Penang, and give them places no one wants to fly to, then it's fair".

WAIT!

Did anyone notice, that neither 2 countries got the 2nd biggest markets? Well, they didn't get Surabaya, and we didn't get Penang.

Facts for 2010:
  • Kuala Lumpur: 34,087,636 passengers, 244,179 movements and 697,015 tons of cargo.
  • Kuching: 3,684,000 passengers, 46,382 movements, and 26,977 tons of cargo.
  • Kinabalu: 5,223,000 passengers, and 55,241 movements.
  • Jakarta: 43,704,000 passengers, 338,711 movements, and 633,391 tons of cargo.
  • Denpasar: 11,006,359 passengers, 84,252 movements, and 67,760 tons of cargo.
  • Makassar: 4,938,468 passengers, 64,495 movements, and 39,620 tons of cargo.

Sure, CGK + DPS + UPG is bigger than KUL + KCH + BKI, but which one is more promising? Remember, Malaysia's 5th Freedom is limited to Australia, but Indonesia's getting those freedoms to Asia, Middle East, Europe and the US.

Many of these so-called blind-nationalists also forget that Indonesia usually give automatic 5th Freedom Rights to Australia anyways, and Malaysia wants passengers to flow through their airports and give generous 5th Freedom Rights.

They also forget or conveniently ignore, that 7x weekly 5th Freedom to Malaysia, or other ASEAN nations, is nothing new!
  • Malaysia Airlines did fly KUL-CGK-MEL until recently, and the route was closed because of low demand on the CGK-MEL segment (and therefore easier and more profitable to just go KUL-MEL direct).
  • Thai Airways also flew BKK-CGK-SYD, and the route was closed as passenger levels didn't pick up and mainly due to the 98 Asian financial crisis.


The also forget that Indonesia usually give 5th Freedom Rights to Australian carriers to go onto other ASEAN destinations.
  • Ansett's SYD-CGK-KUL was quite popular with Australians, Malaysians and Indonesians alike, then closed with the 98 Asian financial crisis. 
  • Qantas for many years flew: 
    • SYD-CGK-SIN where the CGK-SIN portion was mainly to feed OneWorld alliance passengers to/from Singapore. 
    • SYD/MEL-DPS-SIN for the same reasons. 
  • In both cases, CGK/DPS-SIN passenger numbers fell steadily over the years as OneWorld passengers preferred to fly using the interline agreement between Qantas, British Airways and Finnair, with Garuda, Singapore Airlines, and Thai (who flew BKK-SIN-CGK), plus Cathay Pacific's previous HKG-SIN-CGK usually fly a few BA/QF passengers just arriving in Singapore from Europe, to Jakarta.


Now, how can Indonesian carriers use this new bilateral agreement? Garuda might want to do CGK-KUL-Europe, or secondary routes to India or Middle East via KUL (which Malaysia Airlines carry a lot of Indonesian bound/origin passengers).

I do wish that these blind nationalists would stop churning out rubbish, and I wish that respectable observers and analysts (who wrote the article that made me write this), use a little common sense!

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

When poor OTP is caused by stupidity... But who's the stupid one?


Has anyone noticed that since Indonesia Air Asia international flights out of Jakarta has moved to Terminal 3, all of its international flights (except for the first flight of the day for the aircraft) has suffered from delays?



What's happening?
  • If it's weather related, then it shouldn't be as spread out evenly as it is.
  • If it's maintenance related, then it shouldn't be as spread out evenly as it is.
  • If it's passenger caused delays, then it shouldn't be as spread out evenly as it is.

SO WHAT IS IT?

Maybe it has got something to do with the immigration? After all, they did forget to bring their passport stamps on the first day of T3 International Ops. But it has only been this bad in the last 3 days.

I wonder if it has something to do wih the WHOLE CREW SET running through immigration on EVERY turnaround in Jakarta? I have never seen as many number of crew going through imigration back and forth in my lifetime, anywhere!

A new immigration policy? Well, I don't see that happening in the other terminals in the country... well, haven't heard the crew of other airlines complaining.

Why is it limited to Indonesia Air Asia only and in Terminal 3 only? It doesn't seem to affect Malaysia Air Asia operations...

Therefore, this begs the question... If this is a problem between Indonesia Air Asia and Immigration at T3, why isn't something being done about it?

It's only going to be a matter of time before passengers begin to leave Indonesia Air Asia for international flights. Now I am sure those in Indonesia Air Asia know where the real problem is between them and T3 Immigration. The question is, why isn't anything being done about it? Who's supposed to do something about it?

I wonder what the CGK station chief is doing about it.

Thursday, November 17, 2011

A fresh way to Scoot around? Yellow 777 or Yellow Scoopy?


After looking at several online stuff on Scoot, the medium-long haul LCC arm of SQ, why do I feel that the whole concept is kinda stale, unexciting, and been done before?

The stuff that got me wondering immediately was:
Nothing fresh here is there...


Really... Come on! If I want to scoot around, I'll go on a scooter... a Yellow Scoopy would do me just fine! (or perhaps a pink one just for fun!) And it looks a helluvalot FRESHER!
Now his is for Scooting around! 
The Yellow Scoopy!


Maybe it’s the stiffness of SQ that made them think, “Oh Wow! This Scoot idea is so radical and cool!?!?!?”

Really, you cannot be serious?


“Not your everyday airline?”, seen that one before, and more than once. Whenever some airline, chants that, it’s usually an LCC. Ryanair has that image with O’Leary’s crazy cheapskate PR stunts (but yes, it works).

EasyJet was perhaps the biggest user of the “different attitude” and “not your everyday airline” concept. In it’s Stelios days, EasyJet used such “new attitude” and out of the box mentality to run its flash mobs around in orange boiler suits at competitor’s inaugurals, or make bets on how much a competitor will lose money.

So, that worked, why not Scoot? Hey! Who said Scoot won’t work or will fail? I didn’t. I just found their concept as stale, and nothing new.

Everything it has said, sounds like copying Air Asia. Even Scoot’s half-sister Tiger has come up with better “tit-for-tat” one liner fights with Air Asia.

The last time some “try to be too radical” airline started up, it was some Dutch LCC based in Maastricht flying out of Niederrhein/Weeze (Germany), which encouraged their crew to be “radicaly different” (yes, FA candidates were told to paint their hair green or some un-invented colour!). That airline didn’t last long! These days, people barely remember V Bird airlines!

So, Tony Fernandez need to change his line from, “imitation is the greatest form of recognition” to “trying to hard to imitate makes you look stupid!” I wonder whether he agrees with me...

Note: No, I'm not being paid by Honda to write this blog! Honest!

The Boeing Airbus... it happened!

Since we never had the chance of seeing McDonRop BoHeed... Fanboys of Airbus and Boeing who keep fighting each other endlessly should be ashamed when they see:



Seriously, Airbus vs Boeing fights are so boring... anyone care to do a Bombardier vs Embraer one?