Jakarta (The Jakarta Post/ANN) - National flag carrier Garuda Indonesia is set to join the global airline alliance SkyTeam within two years to help expand their worldwide network, an executive said yesterday.
"The effective date of Garuda Indonesia expanding SkyTeam's presence in Southeast Asia has been planned for early 2014. This is due to Garuda's selection of a new IT platform and the time necessary to migrate the airline to the new system," SkyTeam managing director Michael Wisbrun said in a press conference.
He said that the participation of Garuda will provide the airline access to 958 destinations in 173 countries because the alliance currently has 16 members, such as Aeroflot, Aeromexico, Air France, China Airlines, Alitalia, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, Korean Air and Air Europa.
President director Emirsyah Satar said that the company is currently upgrading their IT system by using Spain's Amadeus Alta to become a SkyTeam member.
"We are improving our IT system to meet SkyTeam standards because we have to be on par with all members of the alliance," Emirsyah said on the sidelines of IATA's Annual General Meeting and World Air Transport Summit 2012.
He also said that the new technology was part of the airline's Quantum Leap Program, which set targets for the airline to have 154 aircraft with an average fleet age of 5 years and 32.5 million passengers in 2015. He did not disclose the investment spent to implement the new technology system.
As of today, the airline flies to 19 international routes in Southeast Asia, East Asia, Middle East, Amsterdam and Australia.
International route passengers throughout last year reached 3.2 million.
