Garuda Indonesia and Lion Air recently placed orders for Boeing aircraft which raises questions over how these aircraft will be financed and, in the case of Lion, whether it really needs to order so many aircraft.
Prior to the 19 February announcements, Lion already had 122 Boeing 737-900ERs on order which means last week's order for 56 additional 737-900ERs raises its total commitment to 178.
Lion president Rusdi Kirana says the airline plans to only operate 60 737-900ERs in Indonesia and the rest will be for airlines it plans to start in other countries such as Australia, Malaysia and Thailand.
But these markets already have entrenched players who will undoubtedly try and make it hard for Lion to gain a foothold let alone build up a large local fleet.
Rusdi says he has been financing his aircraft by doing sale and leasebacks with GE Commercial Aviation Services.
He also says he been doing deals with financial institutions such as HSH Nordbank and Germany's DVB.
Garuda, meanwhile, is hundreds of millions of dollars in debt and has yet to state publicly what has been the outcome of its negotiations with European creditors.
A significant proportion of Garuda's total debts relates to monies borrowed earlier from European creditors when it bought Airbus A330s in the late 1990s.
Even though these debt matters appear to still be unresolved, the carrier on 19 February placed a firm order for 10 Boeing 777-300ERs.
But who is going to finance this acquisition?
All that one can assume is that the Indonesian Government will step in and pick up the tab although that would be contradictory to earlier efforts by the government to try and make the state-owned carriers less dependent on state aid.
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