Sirait targets to see a further rising market share for the Lion Air Group in the remainder of 2016, hopefully touching a +10 percent growth pace. The group's Lion Air is the king among Indonesia's low-cost carriers. It carried 14.7 million air passengers in the first six months of 2016, followed by other low-cost carriers Citilink Indonesia, Sriwijaya Air, and Indonesia AirAsia.

The positive performance of Lion Air so far this year is remarkable as the company experienced some "turbulence" in 2016, most notably the strike that was staged by Lion Air pilots. In May 2016 about 300 Lion Air pilots went on strike, leaving thousands of air passengers stranded for hours across several Indonesian airports. Pilots conducted the strike over the delayed payment of their travel expenses. On 3 August 2016 the airline fired 14 pilots who were considered to have masterminded the strike.

Obviously, the strike caused widespread outrage among those air passengers who were left stranded at Indonesian airports. On earlier occasions Lion Air had also disappointed air passengers by (unexplained) delays. In fact, Lion Air has one of the weakest scores in terms of departure punctuality.

Departure Punctuality & Air Passengers Indonesian Airlines:

Airline Punctuality
     2014
Punctuality
     2015
Domestic
Air Passengers
(H1-2016)
Batik Air    90.78%    92.12% 3.46 million
NAM Air    92.92%    91.80% 1.11 million
Garuda Indonesia    88.52%    87.62% 9.60 million
Sriwijaya Air    83.02%    84.79% 3.85 million
Indonesia AirAsia Extra    -    82.40% 0.49 million
Citilink Indonesia    78.20%    81.78% 5.17 million
Indonesia AirAsia    78.67%    81.11% 0.68 million
Kalstar Aviation    65.30%    75.63% 0.41 million
Transnusa    54.41%    74.82% 0.05 million
Wings Air    71.12%    72.05% 2.35 million
Lion Air    73.80%    71.45% 14.70 million
Susi Air    -    60.97% 0.19 million
Travel Express    86.30%    57.40% 0.22 million
Trigana Air    62.91%    56.12% 0.23 million

Source: Bisnis Indonesia

Lion Air offers 44 domestic routes and four international routes to consumers, with an average of 520 flights per day in total. Indonesia is an archipelago that consists of thousands of islands and therefore low-cost airlines are a great choice for transportation. Competition between the nation's budget carriers causes competitive prices. Air passenger traffic in the Asia-Pacific has grown rapidly over the past decade. This region is in fact the world's fastest growing air travel market due to the big populations and rising purchasing power.

Air Passengers in Indonesia:

  Jan-July
   2016
Growth
   Y/Y
Air Passengers Indonesia
    53.9 +15.6%
 - Domestic (in millions)
    45.6 +17.6%
 - International (in millions)
     8.4  +5.7%

Source: Statistics Indonesia (BPS)

Air Passengers in Indonesia:

  2011 2012 2013 2014 2015
Air Passengers
(in millions)
62.4 66.4 68.7 72.6 82.4

Source: Ministry of Transportation

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