Lion Air - History

History

The airline was established in October 1999 and started operations on June 30, 2000, when it began scheduled passenger services between Jakarta and Pontianak using a leased Boeing 737-200. It is owned by Rusdi Kirana and family. The airline is also planning to join IATA and therefore hoping to become the second IATA Indonesian member carrier after Garuda Indonesia. Lion Air failed, in early 2011, the initial IATA assessments for membership due to safety concerns. Lion Air and Boeing is pioneering the use of Required Navigation Performance (RNP) procedures in Indonesia, having successfully performed validation flights at the two terrain-challenged airports of Ambon and Manado.

Starting February 2010, Lion Air increased the number of flights to Jeddah to five times weekly. This route is being served by two Boeing 747-400 with 496 seats.

Aviation Week has reported that Lion Air is planning to establish a joint-venture with Malaysian regional carrier Berjaya Air, in order to create a Malaysian subsidiary. However, the venture was called-off after it became clear that AirAsia and MAS would collude rather than compete.

From 19 July 2011, Lion Air has grounded 13 planes due to sanction caused by bad on-time performance (OTP) until Lion Air can fulfill at least 80 percent of OTP. The transportation ministry recorded that Lion Air's OTP of 66.45 percent was the worst of six airlines in an assessment conducted from January to April 2011 at 24 airports nationwide. On the other hand, airlines face considerable delays to their schedule flying to/from Jakarta airport due to runway congestion.

On 18 November 2011, the airline jointly announced with Boeing for a record-setting order of 201 Boeing 737 MAX and 29 Boeing 737-900ER planes setting the record for the world's biggest single order of 230 planes for a commercial airline worth $21.7 billion.

In January 2012, the Transportation Ministry said that it sanctioned Lion Air because some of its pilots and crew members were found in recent months to be in possession of crystal methamphetamine. In late 2011 Muhammad Nasri along with two other co-pilots were arrested at a party in Tangerang; and in early 2012 a pilot was caught in possession of crystal meth in Makassar. On 4 February 2012, another pilot of Lion Air was arrested following an positive urinalysis test for use of methamphetamine, although he was scheduled to fly on Surabaya-Makassar-Balikpapan-Surabaya flight hours later. The licenses of the pilots and crew have been revoked.

Lion Air is planning to create a long-haul airline called Batik Air, which will begin operations in 2013 using 737-900ERs. Lion Air also signed a commitment with Boeing to order five 787 Dreamliners for the airline, and hopes to have them delivered by 2015. The airline had also been considering ordering the competing Airbus A330 widebody, but opted to purchase the 787 instead.

On 11 September 2012, Lion Air and National Aerospace & Defence Industries Sdn Bhd (Nadi) signed a JV agreement to set up a new airline in Malaysia, to be called Malindo Airways by May 2013. The two partners also agreed to form another JV to provide aircraft maintenance services to all aircraft in the Lion Air Group, including any joint-venture airlines.