Lion Air plans to expand across Asia Pacific
Indonesia’s Lion Air, which has ordered more than 500 aircraft, is planning to spread its wings across Asia with a series of AirAsia-style regional subsidiaries, the company’s commercial chief has revealed.
In an interview with Bloomberg this week, Lion Air’s Commercial Director, Edward Sirait, said the Jakarta-based company was considering following up its new Malaysia-based airline with operations in Thailand, Myanmar and Australia.
“The economic growth in this region has been strong and this will translate to air travel demand,” Sirait told Bloomberg. “Lion Air is anticipating this by ordering these aircraft early. We want to set up partnerships in a number of countries.”
Such a strategy would replicate that of AirAsia, which has expanded from its original Malaysian roots and now operates subsidiaries in Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines and Japan, with a new Indian carrier on the horizon. Jetstar employs a similar strategy, with a new Hong Kong subsidiary set to join its existing ventures in Australia, Singapore, Vietnam and Japan.
Lion Air’s first international joint venture, Malindo Air, launched last month at Kuala Lumpur International Airport. The airline also has a regional subsidiary in Indonesia, Wings Air, and plans to launch high-end Batik Air later this year.
Lion Air hit the headlines last year when it placed a record-breaking order for 230 Boeing 737s, and returned to the spotlight last month with another landmark deal for 234 Airbus A320s. But Sirait told Bloomberg that the Lion intends to carry on expanding, with plans to have a fleet of 1,000 aircraft in 10 years’ time. By today’s standards, that would make it comfortably the world’s biggest airline in terms of fleet size.
Sirait added however, that Lion could lease some of its aircraft if it was unable to utilise all of them.
“The plan A that we have is to put all these planes that we have ordered into operation,” he was quoted saying. “We also have plan B; if someone is keen to lease our planes of course we will do it.”