ER
DOMESTIC airline revenue is predicted to drop in the April-May 2020 period in line with the flight ban announced by the Ministry of Transportation until June 1, 2020.
According to aviation observer and Ombudsman member Alvin Lie projects the airline will experience a revenue decline of more than 90 percent in that period. The reason is not only from the corona pandemic, but also the flight ban that will be applied.
He described that at present the airline only operates around 20-30 percent of its normal route plus physical distancing rules. Under these conditions, the number of passengers also dropped with only 20 percent of capacity.
“If only 30 percent are operated, then the passengers are only 20 percent, so the passenger business is only six percent. The drop alone was 94 percent,” Alvin said.
At present, he continued, there is indeed no strategy that can be carried out by airlines, because this concerns the safety of the community, so it must sacrifice. The government needs to help and maintain that when the corona handling is complete, the airline will be ready to operate normally.
Alvin added that in general during religious holidays such as Eid and Christmas, the number of passengers had indeed increased. Often, airlines can allocate additional flights or extra flights.
However, he added, in recent years airlines did not do much because operational costs were also quite high. They prefer to optimize the occupancy level of passengers or use a type of aircraft that has a larger capacity.
The Ministry of Transportation has officially imposed a ban on flights at home and abroad from April 24, 2020 to June 1, 2020. This is in line with the prevention of the COVID-19 virus pandemic.
Meanwhile the Directorate General of Civil Aviation of the Ministry of Transportation, Novie Riyanto, said that exemptions were made for the use of air transportation facilities only for leaders of high state institutions and guests or state representatives and representatives of international organizations. In addition, it also operates special flight operations for repatriation or repatriation of Indonesian citizens and foreigners. [antaranews/photo special]
