J&T Express Indonesia unveils first 737 freighter

Aviation Updates Philippines – On Thursday, Indonesian logistics company J&T Express unveiled its first freighter aircraft, a Boeing 737-379 freighter, as it enters the air freight market, in response to the booming shipping industry in Southeast Asia.

J&T Express Indonesia, in partnership with Trigana Air, will operate a Boeing 737-300 freighter aircraft to initially launched air freight services from Jakarta to Medan and Batam in Indonesia. Photo from J&T Express Indonesia.

The aircraft was formally unveiled in a launching event at a hangar in Budiarto Airport, Indonesia. The logistics company said the 737 freighter will be operated by Trigana Air "...to increase the efficiency of package delivery."

"Seeing the current pandemic situation, flight schedule instability is still occurring, many flight schedules have been canceled or delayed due to a lack of passengers and other factors which have resulted in obstructed air shipments and delayed delivery of SLAs. After previously maximizing the distribution of land routes for shipments on the island of Java, today J&T Express launched an air freighter to increase the efficiency of air shipping along with the increasing number of packages, especially in areas outside Java," said Robin Lo, CEO of J&T Express Indonesia.

The company will be deploying the aircraft for the Jakarta-Medan and Jakarta-Batam air routes. J&T believes these two routes have the highest delivery traffic for cities outside of Java as of the moment. On each trip, J&T says the 737 will be able to carry 15 tons of cargo with at least two flights a day.

On the other hand, Trigana Air Service supports J&T's air freighter venture: "We welcome J&T Express' breakthrough as a delivery service that seeks to accommodate air shipments to be more efficient without being limited by uncertain delivery schedules. In this case, we also hope that we can support each other and jointly answer business challenges during this pandemic," said Rudi Hartono, Technical Director of Trigana Air.

J&T Express hopes to expand its portfolio of services in order to serve more of its customers. The acquisition of a 737 freighter will help the company in venturing the two underserved routes from Jakarta.