Garuda Indonesia is expecting the contribution from air cargo revenue to rise to more than 20 per cent from the current levels where it contributes less than 10 per cent of the revenue, according to president director of Garuda Indonesia, Arif Wibowo.

Wibowo, speaking to local media, said part of the effort to enhance cargo demand is by adding door-to-door service for customers, compared to the traditional airport-to-airport model. In 2015 Garuda uplifted 351,741 tonnes of cargo.

“But we don’t play business in freight. We still use the services of our partners like PT Pos Indonesia. Yes, our revenue yielded from cargo is very small, less than 10 per cent or between US$260-300 million. We want to increase it to more than 20 per cent this year,” Wibowo explained recently.

He added that earlier plans to add freighters were still on hold. “There is no additional plane. We maximise the existing planes for we don’t have a freighter. Last year, the cargoes declined due to an increase in passenger capacity. I think the growth is very high. We opened Amsterdam route and in one day we could obtain 15-16 tonnes per day,” he said.

Wibowo also said that Garuda has added another director who is specialised in handling cargo distribution. “To be more focused, we added one director to handle cargo services so that the cargo could increase.”