Lion Air Group will pursue more environmentally friendly investments, its managing director Daniel Putut Kuncoro Adi has told the business news site detikFinance, saying that this would include buying sustainable aviation fuels and aircraft that are kinder to the environment. He wants to see the entire fleet to be using SAFs by 2030.
"Hopefully, SAF will come to the aviation industry with a competitive price," he said. "We hope that by 2030 all of our fleet will use SAF.” Group airlines include Lion Air, Batik Air, Super Air Jet, Batik Air Malaysia, and Thai Lion Air.
The Indonesian government has declared its intention to turn the country into one of the world’s biggest SAF suppliers. Aside from its export potential, the government is keen to cut the costs of fuel and crude oil imports. Indonesia is already the world’s largest producer of crude palm oil. Trials started several years ago on palm oil's potential as a SAF feedstock. Jakarta is also interested in the potential of cooking oil, of which Indonesia is the world's third largest exporter, and coconut oil. In 2023, Garuda Indonesia (GA, Jakarta Soekarno-Hatta) operated its first commercial flight using SAF containing 2.4 tonnes of processed palm kernel oil.
While not going into specifics, Adi also said that Lion Air Group would acquire more environmentally friendly aircraft in the future. According to ch-aviation fleets data, collectively the five group carriers operate 301 aircraft, including five ATR72-600s, eighty-three B737-800s, one B737-900, 106 A320-200s, one A320-200N, sixty-seven B737-900ERs, twenty B737-8s, nine A330-300s, and nine A330-900Ns.
The group's cumulative orderbook lists 407 aircraft - one B737-800, 112 A320-200Ns, sixty-five A321-200Ns, 179 B737-8s, and fifty B737-10s.
