Garuda Indonesia turned in a loss of US$712.73m in H1 this year after booking a net profit of $24.11m in the same period last year as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to batter the airline industry. Garuda president director Irfan Setiaputra said the COVID-19 pandemic forced the company to cut its flight frequency and such a measure had severely affected the company’s revenues and profits. “The COVID-19 pandemic has had a severe impact on the company’s performance as our daily flight frequency has been reduced from around 400 to 100 flights. In addition, the number of passengers has also plummeted by around 90%,” he said Saturday. Garuda’s total revenue in this year’s first six months nosedived by 58.2% year on year (yoy) to $917.28m, according to the company’s financial report submitted with the Indonesian Stock Exchange (IDX). Scheduled flights remain the airline’s largest revenue source despite plunging by almost 60% annually to $750.26m. Meanwhile, revenue from unscheduled or chartered flights soared by almost 400% yoy to $21.55m in the first half. Its operating expenses, at the same time, were down by 22% yoy to $1.6b in the same period.<br/>