Garuda Indonesia
- IATA/ICAO Code
- GA/GIA
- Airline Type
- Full Service Carrier
- Hub(s)
- Jakarta Soekarno-Hatta International
- Year Founded
- 1949
- Alliance
- SkyTeam
- CEO
- Irfan Setiaputra
- Country
- Indonesia
Garuda Indonesia’s domestic market share has sunk to just 5% in June. Indonesia’s beleaguered flag carrier has lost market share to a steady flow of new low-cost startups and an increasingly assertive Lion Group. These two non-COVID-related trends help explain why Garuda Indonesia is having such a tough time in the contemporary Indonesia aviation market.
The rise of low-cost carriers in Indonesia’s domestic airline market
Indonesia is usually the world’s fifth-largest domestic aviation market. The market has now recovered to around 80% of pre-pandemic capacity. Aviation analyst Brendan Sobie told a recent IBS online discussion that the Indonesian domestic market shares some similarities with other airline markets but also has some unusual quirks.
One of the big Indonesian trends is the rise of the low-cost carriers. They’ve been around in the Indonesian domestic market since the turn of the century, but since the pandemic, the combined domestic market share of low-cost airlines is now above 70%. Lion Air, a low-cost carrier, has a 42% share of Indonesia’s domestic aviation market this month. Other low-cost carriers with sizeable market shares include Wings Air (9%), Indonesia AirAsia (5%), recently launched Super Air Jet (5%), and Garuda subsidiary Citilink (13%). Lion Group airlines have a 70% domestic market share, while the once-mighty Garuda Group has an 18% domestic market share.
“What we’ve seen with Garuda is that they have a lot more capacity and a lot more flights with Citilink than with Garuda. This has been happening throughout the pandemic, and CitiLink has become a much larger airline compared to Garuda. It will stay that way in Garuda’s post-restructuring phase. They will focus more on the low-cost…