GARUDA PROJECTING FIVE-STAR SERVICE STANDARD BY 2012

Jakarta, Apr 7 (ANTARA) - National flag-carrier airline company PT Garuda Indonesia has projected to reach a five-star service standard in 2012 by constantly improve its services and increasing the number of its aircraft.

"Insya Allah (God willing) in the next two years we will reach a five-star performance," President Director of PT Garuda Indonesia Emirsyah Satar said after signing a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on ticketing with PT PLN in Jakarta Thursday.

He said currently Garuda has won the status of a four-star Sky Track like the Emirates. "There only 26 airline companies in the world enjoying such four-star status, and Garuda was the 27th, and even the Dutch airline company KLM is now enjoying on a three-star status. We willt try to further imporve our services," he said.

For that purposes, Emir added, Garuda will increase the numberr of its planes to 116 by 2014, from the current 68 units with destinations to 36 cities.

"This year we also plan to open another 12 domestic and international destinations," he said.

Garuda is currently also busy with building corporate market by signing an MoU with a number of state enterprises and big companies in Indonesia on ticketing.

"In Bandung last week we have signed MoUs with 28 state enterprises to develop the corporate market," he added.

Last year Garuda signed such MoUs with 580 major companies in Indonesia with a total income of more than Rp580 billion.

This year, Garuda has projected its earnings from sales to big companies at Rp2 trillion with a projected 750 partner companies for similar cooperation schemes.

"Garuda is currently still trying to develop corporate market shares and last week we signed MoUs with 28 state enterprises," he said.