Lion Air confirms B737 MAX10 order, eyes 787

JAKARTA: Indonesia’s Lion Air Group announced yesterday a firm order to buy 50 Boeing Co 737 MAX 10 narrowbody jets worth US$6.24 billion (RM24 billion) and said it plans to place a provisional order for Boeing 787 widebody jets in the next few weeks.

Lion Air, which already has offshoots in Malaysia and Thailand, also plans to establish a new airline in a Southeast Asian country this year, co-founder Rusdi Kirana told reporters.

He declined to elaborate on the number of 787s to be ordered or in which country the new airline would be established.

A memorandum of understanding for the purchase of 787s would be announced in “two to three weeks”, he said.

Kirana’s comments came after the privately owned company earlier in the day confirmed the purchase of the 50 Boeing 737 MAX 10 jets by announcing a firm order. The jets are worth US$6.24 billion at list prices, but airlines usually get discounts for bulk purchases.

The rapidly expanding carrier had in June 2017 placed a provisional order for the jets, the newest and largest member of the Boeing narrowbody family.

Kirana said the Indonesian government’s infrastructure expansion, which included airports, was fuelling Lion’s demand for more aircraft.

The airline’s fleet is comprised primarily of narrowbodies, although it has three Airbus SE A330 widebodies. Kirana did not say what routes the 787s would be used on.

Boeing senior vice-president Asia Pacific and India sales Dinesh Keskar said the Boeing 737 MAX 10 was due to be certified by regulators in 2020, with Lion Air expected to receive its first jets of the type soon after.

“We signed this deal because we’re anticipating a growing numbers of passengers in the coming years and so we can increase the amount of our national and international flights,” Lion’s president director Edward Sirait said.

Currently, the airline flies to nearly 80 mostly domestic destinations with international routes including Singapore, the Philippines, Malaysia, China, and Saudi Arabia.

Founded in 1999 by brothers Kusnan and Rusdi Kirana, Lion is the first private airline in Indonesia. The country has a burgeoning middle class which is keen to abandon travel by bus, ferry and train and instead take to the skies for holidays and family visits. – Agencies