Garuda Indonesia (GA, Jakarta Soekarno-Hatta) is increasing its flying from Jayapura in Papua province, according to the airline's senior official in the city, Agny Gallus Pratama. The shift involves redeploying at least one aircraft, now based at Jakarta Soekarno Hatta Airport, to Papua, increasing frequencies on some existing routes in and out of Jayapura, and introducing new routes.
"At the end of the third and fourth weeks of October, we will have additional flight schedules, direct Jayapura-Jakarta, which previously were once a day, but we will serve them ten times a week," he told local media outlets late last week.
The current once-weekly Garuda services on the Jayapura - Biak sector will increase to three times a week, while direct flights on the Jayapura - Makassar and Jayapura - Merauke routes will also operate at thrice-weekly frequencies. In addition, flights originating in Jayapura will also fly to Denpasar six times per week, with three flights going via Makassar and three via Tembagapura. Pratama told the outlets that the increase in operations will see Garuda move at least one aircraft to Jayapura.
While he did not provide information on the aircraft type, ch-aviation schedules data reveals Garuda flies B737-800 equipment from that airport. The ch-aviation PRO airports module also shows that seven passenger airlines service the Papuan capital, they being Trigana Air Service, Wings Air (Indonesia), Sriwijaya Air, Lion Air, Batik Air, Citilink, and Garuda Indonesia. These carriers provide just under 30,000 weekly seats in and out of Jayapura to 14 destinations in Indonesia, with Lion Air being the dominant carrier providing 33% of those seats. Ahead of its expansion of services, Garuda is the fifth-placed carrier at the airport, offering around 9.5% of available seats.
