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Lion Air to Make Bangkok its Hub
1st Nov 2013
Lion Air is a budget carrier based in Jakarta and is the country's largest airline in terms of number of destinations covered across its network.
Currently, Lion Air has seven major hubs in its home country - Jakarta, Ambon, Bali, Batam, Makassar, Manado and Surabaya. Overseas, it maintains a hub in Kuala Lumpur via its local subsidiary in Malaysia, the Malindo Air.
Malindo Air is an offshoot of Lion Air's joint venture with National Aerospace Defence Industries of Malaysia. It is the airline's first such partnership with a foreign-based investor and the first local subsidiary to be established outside Indonesia.
According to the airline official, Bangkok is a logical choice for the airline's next hub in the region given its status as one of Asia's major tourist destinations. Thailand has long been a top tourist destination in the region.
The budget carrier's partner in its Thai joint venture is Thai Lion Mentari Company. The Thai subsidiary, Thai Lion Air, has recently been given a go signal from the Transport Ministry of Thailand with the issuance of an air operator license. Before it can take its wings to the skies, however, it needs to secure from Civil Aviation Department an operator certificate which would be awarded soon.
According to its plan, it will inaugurate service in November this year with a twice-daily service from Bangkok to Jakarta. The once-daily Bangkok-Kuala Lumpur service as well as the Bangkok-Chiang Mai flights will also be added to the route network soon after that. It is also planning to introduce service to other popular Thai destinations such as Krabi, Phuket and Udon Thani in the future.
Initially at the moment, Thai Lion Air has a couple of new Boeing B737-900ER aircraft in its fleet which it will use for the inaugural service. Each aircraft can accommodate up to 215 on all-economy configuration. Its ambitious plan for its Thai subsidiary is to have 50 aircraft in its fleet within the next five years.
The plan is not farfetched considering that its mother unit has wowed the aviation world recently as it placed massive orders of planes, at 708, from the world's three largest manufacturers. The bulk of which will be from Boeing, at 408 aircraft, while the rest will be coming from Airbus company and ATR of France.
The massive orders do not even include the 201 Boeing B737MAX and the 29 B737-900ER it already ordered in November last year.
Lion Air also operates Wings Air, also a budget carrier, which serves outlying islands in the world's largest archipelago. Together, the Lion Air group flies to 76 destinations across Indonesia, by far, larger than any other airline in the country.
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