Lion Air places record Airbus order
Indonesian carrier Lion Air has signed a $20 billion order for the delivery of more than 200 A320 medium-haul jets on March 18. It is one of the largest orders ever for Lion Air, Indonesia’s largest privately run airline, owned by self-made billionaire Rusdi Kirana.
The deal comes just after the financing for Lion Air’s $22.4 billion order for 230 Boing B737-900ER aircraft was finalised on March 5.
Lion Air, whose main base is the Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Jakarta, currently has a fleet of 83 aircraft but is expanding rapidly as Air travel has grown sharply in recent years with the emergence of budget carriers in Southeast Asia as well as rising incomes thanks to steady economic growth. The domestic aviation market in Indonesia, serving the world’s fourth largest population of 240 million, is growing at 21 per cent annually.
Lion Air’s subsidiaries include Malindo Air, an airline that will serve destinations in Sarawak, Malaysia, starting March 22, as well as Batik Air, launched as the long-haul arm of Lion Air which will commence flying from its base in Sulawesi later in 2013 and compete with full service airlines. Another subsidiary, Wings Air, will start operating as a commuter airline within Indonesia from July 2013 and also connect Jakarta with Penang and Malacca in Malaysia and Davao in Mindanao, Philippines.
Analyst expect that the Lion Air group will emerge as a major rival to leading low-cost carrier AirAsia in the region. However, Lion Air, including its Wings Air subsidiary, has been put on the list of air carriers banned in the European Union due to safety concerns as of February 2012, a fate that it is sharing with most other Indonesian carriers.
Indonesian carrier Lion Air has signed a $20 billion order for the delivery of more than 200 A320 medium-haul jets on March 18. It is one of the largest orders ever for Lion Air, Indonesia’s largest privately run airline, owned by self-made billionaire Rusdi Kirana. The deal comes just after the financing for Lion Air's $22.4 billion order for 230 Boing B737-900ER aircraft was finalised on March 5. Lion Air, whose main base is the Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Jakarta, currently has a fleet of 83 aircraft but is expanding rapidly as Air travel has grown sharply in recent years...
Indonesian carrier Lion Air has signed a $20 billion order for the delivery of more than 200 A320 medium-haul jets on March 18. It is one of the largest orders ever for Lion Air, Indonesia’s largest privately run airline, owned by self-made billionaire Rusdi Kirana.
The deal comes just after the financing for Lion Air’s $22.4 billion order for 230 Boing B737-900ER aircraft was finalised on March 5.
Lion Air, whose main base is the Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Jakarta, currently has a fleet of 83 aircraft but is expanding rapidly as Air travel has grown sharply in recent years with the emergence of budget carriers in Southeast Asia as well as rising incomes thanks to steady economic growth. The domestic aviation market in Indonesia, serving the world’s fourth largest population of 240 million, is growing at 21 per cent annually.
Lion Air’s subsidiaries include Malindo Air, an airline that will serve destinations in Sarawak, Malaysia, starting March 22, as well as Batik Air, launched as the long-haul arm of Lion Air which will commence flying from its base in Sulawesi later in 2013 and compete with full service airlines. Another subsidiary, Wings Air, will start operating as a commuter airline within Indonesia from July 2013 and also connect Jakarta with Penang and Malacca in Malaysia and Davao in Mindanao, Philippines.
Analyst expect that the Lion Air group will emerge as a major rival to leading low-cost carrier AirAsia in the region. However, Lion Air, including its Wings Air subsidiary, has been put on the list of air carriers banned in the European Union due to safety concerns as of February 2012, a fate that it is sharing with most other Indonesian carriers.
Lion Air has started off the year with major purchases of aircrafts and has no intentions of slowing down. With such purchases Lion Air will shortly become a rival for the leading low cost carrier in the region, AirAsia. Although Lion Air
is banned in the European Union due to safety concerns, with its recent expansions Lion Air can potentially make the improvements and begin to fly to new destinations in 2014.