RIAU AIRLINES CLOSES DOWN PEKANBARU-JAKARTA ROUTE

Pekanbaru, Jan 9 (ANTARA) - Riau Airlines company (RAL) has closed down its Pekanbaru-Jakarta route after suffering continual losses in the competition with other airlines flying the same route.

"Our Pekanbaru-Jakarta route has been closed since January 6, 2010," the company's spokesman, Teguh Trianto, said here on Saturday.

He said RAL opened its Pekanbaru-Jakarta route in December 2008 when Samudra Sukardi was its president director.

The brother of former State Enterprises Minister Laksamana Sukardi at the time decided to open the Pekanbaru-Jakarta route with two Avro RJ-100 aircraft with a capacity of 108 seats each.

For its future business, Teguh Trianto said, RAL would focus on its commercial flight services in Sumatra island, and it recently opened a new route to Jambi.

"In the near future, we will open a new route to Palembang," he said, adding the routes in Sumatra island were more prospective than the Pekanbaru-Jakarta route.

RAL now had seven aircraft, namely two RJ-100 and five Fokker-50 planes.

"We have closed down the Pekanbaru-Jakarta route until we have bigger airplanes," Teguh Trianto said.