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National carrier Garuda Indonesia and other airlines across the archipelago experienced a surge in demand on Sunday, the last day of the end-of-Ramadan holiday period, as mudik travelers returned from their home towns.

“Today [Sunday] is the peak of returning after the Idul Fitri holiday, and demand for airline tickets is very high,” said Wempie Ohoiwutunm, Garuda’s general manager at Pontianak, West Kalimantan. “Today we had the highest demand for the past three years.”

He said that demand for air transport peaked on Sunday ahead of today’s resumption of operations today at many government and private sector offices after the massive exodus for the week-long holiday.

Wempie said that Garuda had not allocated additional aircraft to Supadio International Airport in Pontianak because the existing fleet could accommodate demand for travel to Jakarta from Kalimantan, which is the site of energy companies capitalizing on gas and oil in the area.

He believed the jump in demand affected all airlines, not just Garuda. Low-cost carrier Batavia Air added an additional flight to the two scheduled for the route from the province of Jambi to Jakarta on Sunday.

“Other airlines serving the Jambi route used higher-capacity planes to serve an increasing number of passengers,” said Abiyoso, head of Sultan Thaha Airport in Jambi.

During regular days, most airlines use Boeing 737-300s, each of which has a capacity of 120 passengers. But with current Idul Fitri festivities, they operated 737-400s with a capacity of 180 passengers, Abiyoso said.

Garuda Indonesia scheduled an additional 99 flights for the fortnight surrounding Idul Fitri, which started around Aug. 31 (though it was initially expected to start on Aug. 30).

The additional flights were assigned for its routes from Jakarta to Denpasar, Singapore, Padang, Yogyakarta and Surabaya. The airline also operated wide-bodied aircraft on several routes.

The company had said prior to Idul Fitri that the additional flights would result in nearly 900,000 extra seats for the period, up 25 percent on last year.