Jakarta (ANTARA News)  - Demand for flight tickets in a number of travel bureaus has drastically increased in the runnup to the post-fasting Idul Fitri holidays next week, a tour operator said.

According to Desi, an employee of the Mandiri Tour and Travel operator said here on Friday that demand for flight tickets tripled in the runnup to the Lebaran holidays compared with the normal days.

"Since last week, demand for flight tickets had tripled, particularly seven days before the peak of Lebaran day on September 11, 2010," he said.

She said most of the tickets ordered were for Sumatran destinations.

She said that her tour and travel agency usually sold 25 tickets per day but in the runnup to the Lebaran holidays, it sold up to 70 to 80 flight tickets per day.

Desi said that about 50 percent of the ordered tickets were for flights to Sumatran cities such as Padang, Medan and Palembang, and 30 percent for flights to Java`s cities such as Yoyakarta, Surabaya and Madura. The remaining 20 percent were for Bali and Kalimantan destinations.

The increase in the demand for flights has also boosted price increases. Tickets for flights to Padang increased from Rp550 thousands to Rp600 thousands, to Medan from Rp600 thousands to Rp650 thousands, Yogyakarta from Rp500 thousands to Rp550 thousands, Surabaya from Rp Rp500 thousands to Rp550 thousands and Denpasar from Rp800 thousands to Rp900 thousands per ticket.

"Ticket prices began to increase since last week as demand for flights began to rise," she said.

In the runnup to post-fasting Lebaran holidays next week, the number of buses from the Merak port of Banten to Bakauheni port of Lampung began to increase Thursday night and early Friday.

In the meantime, the flow of passenger buses at ports of Bakauheni and Merak which connect Java and Sumatra has showed an upward trend.

Operational Manager of PT Indonesia Ferry for Bakauheni, Zalili Anas, said on Friday that passenger buses from a number of cities in Java dominated the flow of arriving buses at the port.

The increase in the number of passenger buses reached 20 percent from that on the normal days and some of the buses were intercity/inter-province buses, he said.
(Uu.A014/H-NG/F001/P003)

Editor: Priyambodo RH
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