Coronavirus: flying where some fear to tread

As thousands of Australians around the world remain stranded by cancelled flights, Garuda has vowed to keep flying its Australian route.

‘The only way Garuda will stop flying between Australia and Indonesia is if our government disallows us or your government rejects us’: Garuda chief executive Irfan Setiaputra. Picture: AFP

As thousands of Australians around the world remain stranded by cancelled flights and discriminatory quotas, Indonesian national carrier Garuda has vowed to keep flying its Australian route notwithstanding the financial pain caused by international arrivals caps.

Garuda chief executive Irfan Setiaputra said that while the airline had been forced to slash the usually bustling service between the two countries to just three flights a fortnight from Jakarta to Sydney or Perth, it would maintain connectivity and even hoped to increase the number of flights before Christmas.

“The only way Garuda will stop flying between Australia and Indonesia is if our government disallows us or your government rejects us,” he said.

“There are still Australians who want to come back to Australia. There are still Indonesians who want to come back to Indonesia. There are still goods to be delivered between Indonesia and Australia, so we are flying sometimes to several cities outside Jakarta with no passengers.”

Australians have not always loved the ­partially state-owned carrier, which in the past 12 years has turned around a previously patchy safety record (three Australians were among 21 who died in a 2007 Yogyakarta crash) to become one of the region’s better airlines.

Until early this year, the airline flew dozens of weekly flights back and forth from Australia, mostly to carry more than 1.23 million Australians to Bali each year.

When Qantas announced in late March that it was suspending its Indonesia route, Garuda reassured expatriates in both countries that its service ­between the two would continue.

Garuda is now the only airline operating between Indonesia and Australia, even as demand has plummeted.

Indonesia Australia Institute chief Ross Taylor said there were still about 3000 Australians in Bali, and at least a third of those would like to get back to Australia but couldn’t because of flight limitations and the cost of quarantine on arrival.

“That’s going to get worse, I think,” he said, pointing to soaring COVID-19 infections in Jakarta and Bali, which has prompted the Indonesian capital to impose a fresh lockdown from Monday.

Mr Setiaputra said Indonesia’s ban on most foreign visitors, and Australia’s international ­arrivals cap that limited the average number of passengers on an incoming flight to just 50, had been financially painful but he still hoped to bring on extra flights before Christmas.

And he added: “We won’t be gouging passengers”.

One-way tickets between ­Indonesia and Australia have risen steeply in recent months, with an economy class seat ­between Jakarta and Sydney costing up to $1000.

But Mr Setiaputra said the airline would not be following the lead of some carriers who were filling their flights with only first and business class passengers paying upwards of $10,000 a ticket. “We know there are some people who would pay that, but we can’t overcharge,” he said.

“This is not the way we do business. We are looking for ­opportunities but we don’t want to be opportunistic because we represent the government and people of Indonesia.

“During this pandemic the most important thing is to bring families together. How could we do that if we acted the same as some other airlines?”