National flag carrier Garuda Indonesia is teaming up with minimarket chain Indomaret to allow air passengers to buy tickets from the chain’s outlets across the country in a bid to boost the airline’s sales.
For payments, Garuda works with electronic payment provider Finnet, a subsidiary of state telecommunications company PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia (Telkom).
Garuda Indonesia commercial director Handayani said the company expected passengers would buy tickets from at least 20 percent of Indomaret’s 11,400 outlets.
In ticket sales, the company expects the partnership to account for 830,000 transactions a year, or around 1.6 million tickets assuming that each buyer buys two tickets.
“With their strategic sites, Indomaret outlets will open up consumer access to our services, including in places with little access to the Internet and ATMs,” Handayani said in a statement on Wednesday.
She added that Indomaret ticketing services would be focused on domestic flights for individual customers.
“People who go to Indomaret will tend to buy small numbers of tickets for domestic flights. The average ticket price will be between Rp 400,000 and Rp 500,000,” she said.
Garuda’s low-cost subsidiary carrier Citilink has cooperated with Indomaret since January 2014.
Indomaret records around 150 million transactions with 37.5 million customers monthly, according to Wiwiek Yusuf, the marketing director of PT Indomarco Prismatama, which runs the chain.
“Of that figure, 15 million transactions, or 10 percent, are virtual,” he said, adding that Garuda would add to the list of the chain’s virtual payments, which currently includes electricity bills, phone credit and concert tickets.
Online ticket purchasing makes up 28 percent of Garuda’s total transactions, with the remainder carried out through traditional channels such as travel agents.
The airline’s partnership with Indomaret adds to its current relationship with Telkom, which runs Garuda’s call center. However, Garuda customers who book tickets through the call center can only pay with credit cards or through the ATMs of 18 banks.
Telkom enterprise and business service director Muhammad Awa-luddin said the cooperation would mark the first non-bank channel for Garuda.
“Finnet has hundreds of dealers and is connected to 77 banks, so we envision no problems,” he said.
The cooperation is part of Garuda’s efforts to meet a target of carrying 25 million passengers this year.
The airline carried 11.55 million passengers in the first half of the year, up 15.3 percent from last year, of which 9.4 million were domestic passengers.
“With this cooperation, we should reach more than 20 million,” Handayani said.
She added that she would rely on the growth of Indomaret outlets for expanding consumer access, with the firm looking to reach 12,000 outlets this year.
Other than the domestic market, Garuda is also eyeing increased inbound flights after Coordinating Maritime Affairs Minister Rizal Ramli announced on Tuesday the waiving of visas for citizens of 47 more countries, adding to 30 countries granted visa exemptions in June.
“We will engage with foreign tourist boards and travel agents. We have to be aggressive in introducing Indonesia to those countries, beyond Bali and Jakarta,” Handayani said.
The company booked US$27.7 million in net income in the January-June period, a sharp increase from its net loss of $203 million in the same period last year, on the back of lower operating expenses and strong passenger growth.