Inflight duty free and travel retail concessionaire, Inflight Sales Group (ISG), has been awarded the contract for the duty free and duty paid retail programme onboard Indonesia’s biggest airline and national carrier, Garuda, starting from 1 April.

Together with the current contract with the airline group’s low-cost subsidiary Citilink, ISG has strengthened its footprint in Indonesia.

Rai promises ‘new insights and innovations’ at Garuda.

ISG Executive Director, Vimal Rai, says: “ISG now stands ready to deliver an exciting and dynamic inflight retail programme for Garuda. We are confident to take it to the next level, commensurate with Garuda’s five-star status as an airline.

“We, together with PT Rodamas Wirasakti [the first company in Indonesia to manage inflight sales with a particular focus on crew incentivisation] have had a long history of retail partnership with Garuda already, and after a short break, we are happy to be bringing new insights and innovations to the airline’s inflight retail offering.”

ISG Managing Director, Tony Detter, adds: “While we are expanding in the European market, we continue to see great potential in Asia. With the extensive network that Garuda is flying and its forecast growth, we foresee that there is an opportunity to further expand ancillary revenues through inflight sales.”

Fast-growing Garuda Indonesia – a recently-joined member of the SkyTeam alliance – has a fleet of over 130 aircraft – offering 600 flights a day to more than 70 destinations worldwide and an extensive network in the Indonesian archipelago.

The airline had revenue of $2.85bn in the nine months to September 2015, up slightly on the same period in 2014. In terms of passenger growth, however, it outpaced its key regional rivals (see chart below) with +14.2% growth which was also strongly ahead of the regional average of +8.1%.

Garuda was outperforming key competitors in YTD November 2015.