Indonesian budget carrier Lion Air gained global fame in 2011 when it ordered 230 Boeing planes price as much as $22 billion, the biggest deal within the U.S. manufacturer’s history, nevertheless it has been dogged by issues of safety for years.
When co-founder Rusdi Kirana was asked a couple of months later whether bank loans can be needed to finance the acquisition, he told reporters on the 2012 Singapore Airshow: “I’m a bank.”
Founded in 1999 by brothers Rusdi and Kusnan Kirani, the low-cost carrier began operations in 2000 as the primary low-cost carrier in Indonesia, using a leased Boeing 737-200 between Jakarta and Denpasar, the resort capital of Bali.
It quickly rose to the highest of Indonesia’s booming domestic air travel sector, becoming the country’s largest private airline and the second largest in Southeast Asia after Malaysian carrier AirAsia.
High demand within the archipelago, the world’s fourth most populous country, prompted Lion Air on an aircraft-buying spree that has made international headlines since 2011.
All 189 passengers and crew feared dead after Indonesian plane crashed in Java Sea
All 189 passengers and crew feared dead after Indonesian plane crashed in Java Sea
With then-US President Barack Obama as a witness, Boeing and Lion Air signed a record deal on the sidelines of the Asian summit in Bali for the acquisition of 29 737-900 aircraft and 201 orders of the brand new 737 MAX, together with an option for 150 more aircraft.
The orders were valued at $21.7 billion at list prices, and the U.S. planemaker described them as “the biggest industrial aircraft order in Boeing’s history, each by way of dollar value and total variety of aircraft.”
However, Lion Air soon broke that record, ordering 234 mid-range A320 aircraft from Airbus in 2013, price as much as $24 billion at list prices.
The carrier currently operates domestic flights and a lot of international routes in Southeast Asia, Australia and the Middle East.
However, the airline suffered from safety and mismanagement problems and, like other Indonesian airlines, was banned from flying to European airspace until 2016.
In the primary fatal accident in 2004, 26 people died and greater than 100 were injured when a Lion Air plane skidded at an airport within the central Java city of Solo, with the airline blaming bad weather and powerful tailwinds.
In 2013, a rookie pilot flying a Lion Air plane overshot the runway and landed within the sea off the coast of Bali, splitting the plane in two and forcing passengers to swim to safety. Interestingly, nobody died within the accident.
Three years later, two Lion Air passenger planes clipped their wings as they were about to take off from Jakarta’s primary Soekarno-Hatta airport.
A month later, the Indonesian earthquake and tsunami hit town and it faced a serious health crisis
A month later, the Indonesian earthquake and tsunami hit town and it faced a serious health crisis
Monday’s crash “is symptomatic of the aviation industry’s general concern about Indonesia’s aviation safety record,” said Shukor Yusof of Malaysian aviation consultancy Endau Analytics.
Yusof said that between 2010 and 2015, there was an annual aviation incident in Indonesia that resulted within the plane having to be written off.
Indonesia “needs loads of help from aviation specialists and experts,” he said, adding: “the country seems unable to unravel this problem by itself.”
Analysts say infrastructure improvements, pilot training and aircraft maintenance haven’t kept pace with the country’s explosive growth in air traffic.
As the aviation industry continues to evolve, “it’s difficult to take care of an institutional safety culture,” said Greg Waldron, Asia editor of industry publication Flightglobal.
“So it’s a difficult situation.”
