JAKARTA: Indonesia will need more than 600 aircraft to revamp its aging fleet and bring its capacity on par with other Southeast Asian countries, according to the Commercial Market Outlook (CMO) 2025 of United States aviation giant Boeing.
The country has the largest but also the oldest fleet in the region, with an average age of 14.4 years and around 5 percent of new generation aircraft, the report says.
“This speaks to the need for that replacement cycle of these airplanes and also supporting the future growth of the region,” Dave Schulte, Boeing’s managing director of commercial marketing in Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia and Oceania, told a media briefing on Wednesday (Aug 27).
Schulte added that Indonesia was still lagging in number of departing seats per capita with a rate of 0.4, well below an average of around 0.65 seats per capita among its regional peers.
“If we were to grow Indonesia in terms of seats per capita to the average of Southeast Asia, [...] doing that overnight would mean the need for about 600 new airplanes to enter Indonesia in the near term alone,” he explained.
According to this year’s Boeing CMO, Indonesia’s fleet growth has slowed over the past decade through to the post-pandemic period, with new aircraft deliveries declining from 54 in 2014 to none last year.
Few new airplanes had entered the Indonesian market after the pandemic, Schulte said, even though it was a high-growth market with strong demographic fundamentals to support fleet expansion.
The CMO 2025 highlights that Indonesia’s growing population, young demographic and increasing income levels will support air travel growth over the next 20 years.
Its travel and tourism sector, which grew in GDP contribution from 4.8 percent in 2023 to 5.1 percent in 2024, also backs this outlook.
President Prabowo Subianto announced last month that flag carrier Garuda Indonesia would be purchasing Boeing planes as part of Jakarta’s tariff deal with Washington to import more US energy and agricultural products.
“I think there’s no problem [with the deal] because we need [planes], and they want to sell. Boeing planes are good enough, and we’re still [going to purchase] from Airbus, too,” Prabowo told reporters on July 16.
US President Donald Trump announced the so-called reciprocal trade framework agreement on July 15 on his Truth Social social media platform: “As part of the Agreement, Indonesia has committed to purchasing US$15 Billion Dollars in US Energy, $4.5 Billion Dollars in American Agricultural Products, and 50 Boeing Jets, many of them 777’s.”
On July 9, State-Owned Enterprises Minister Erick Thohir announced that Garuda planned to increase its order of Boeing aircraft from 50 to 79 planes to ease US tariff pressures.
Boeing also recorded a $36 billion order from Korean Air this month, announced just hours after South Korean President Lee Jae-myung met with President Trump in Washington on Aug 25 to discuss the recently imposed US tariffs.
The commitment, which includes a mix of 787s, 777s and 737 Boeing airplanes, marks the Korean flag carrier’s largest-ever order and the US aircraft manufacturer’s largest order for wide-body aircraft from an Asian airline.
Korean Air also agreed a separate $13.7 billion deal with General Electric on engine purchase and maintenance. - The Jakarta Post/ANN
