Indonesia`s Adam Air looks to expand fleet to 50-60 jets within five years

Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Indonesian low cost carrier Adam Air is embarking on a fleet expansion plan that could see it flying 50 to 60 jets within five years, a spokesman said Friday.

Privately-owned Adam Air began operations in 2003 and is the largest discount airline by passenger number in Indonesia's fragmented market.

"We plan to add more planes to our fleet, around four or five additional aircraft each year. So in five years we will have about 50 to 60 aircraft. Right now we have 23," spokesman Danke Dradjat was quoted by Thomson Financial as saying.

He said that it was undecided yet whether Adam Air would continue to fly only Boeing 737 series jets or switch to Airbus, but it would depend on "terms and conditions" offered by the two main manufacturers.

He could not give an estimate of how much the carrier would spend but said the rapid expansion of low cost carriers in India and China meant planes were getting more difficult to lease so costs were soaring.

Adam Air opened a new domestic route this week to Banjarmasin, the capital of South Kalimantan province on Borneo island, and was studying opening flights to Ambon and Kupang in the east, Dradjat said.

Passenger numbers had bounced back in the wake of one of its jetliners crashing into the sea on New Year's Day, with average passenger loads at 92 percent, the spokesman said. The January disaster killed 102 people.

"We had quite a bad time the first and second month after the accident, but then conditions rebounded very quickly, especially after the Garuda accident when people saw it could happen to any airline," Dradjat said.