News

Garuda Indonesia launches service upgrades

26 Jun 2013

Garuda Indonesia has recently launched the “Immigration on Board” service on the Jakarta-Shanghai route to boost tourism between Indonesia and China. A new reservation system is also being introduced pending its formal admission to SkyTeam in 2014.

The “Immigration on Board” service is also available on flights bound for Jakarta from Tokyo (Narita), Seoul, and Sydney, and flights headed to Denpasar from Tokyo (Narita), Osaka and Sydney. Passport holders of some 62 countries are eligible for visa-on-arrival when entering Indonesia via designated gateways. These countries include People’s Republic of China, the US, UK, Russia, India, Japan and South Korea.

The fee of the visa-on-arrival is $US25. In China, the cost has to be settled with RMB, which is about RMB160 but might fluctuate based on the current exchange rate. To enjoy the service, passengers will have to purchase a voucher when checking in at the Garuda counter. Upon presentation of the voucher, the immigration officer on board will stick the visa onto the passenger’s passport and get it stamped. That allows the passengers to head straight to immigration counters without having to queue up separately for the visa. For an airport notorious for being over-capacity, this service provides great relief for those who can enjoy it.

The airline’s flights to Chinese destinations are also staffed with Chinese-speaking cabin crew members so as to remove any language barriers and help passengers throughout the flight.

And pending its official admission to Skyteam next year (see story here), Garuda has announced that it is replacing its old reservation system, ARGA, with the Amadeus Altea, a passenger services system, starting from June 30. The platform is used by all SkyTeam members including KLM, Air France and TAROM and it enables members of the global alliance to share information and data on seat availability, air tariffs, bookings, ground handling and check-in, as well as the frequent flyer programme of each airline.

From the second half of 2013, the Indonesian flag carrier will begin to launch more domestic routes including Bandung-Denpasar, as well as international ones such as Jakarta-London, Medan-Penang, Surabaya-Singapore, Denpasar-Bangkok, Denpasar-Brisbane, and Denpasar-Kuala Lumpur. Twenty-four new aircraft will join its fleet: four Boeing 777-300ERs, three Airbus A330s, 10 Boeing 737-800NGs and seven Bombardier CRJ1000 NextGens. Add to that 16 new aircraft for Citilink, a low-cost subsidiary of Garuda, the two airlines will operate as many as 194 aircraft by 2015. It is expected that as many as 45.4 million passengers will be carried by them annually.

For more information, visit www.garuda-indonesia.com

Valerian Ho

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