Low-cost Indonesian carrier Lion Air, which had just one plane 12 years ago and remains little known elsewhere, made waves with the world’s largest-ever commercial aircraft order.

The biggest private airline in the archipelago nation, Lion plans to expand across the Asia-Pacific region and signed a $21 billion contract for 230 Boeing 737s with the US manufacturer as President Barack Obama looked on.

The order is more than three times the size of Lion’s entire existing fleet and analysts described it as “incredible”, but the airline — banned from EU skies over safety fears — admitted that funding had yet to be finalised.

Outside Indonesia, where the growing middle class relies on air transport to cover vast distances over land and water, Lion’s 65 current aircraft only fly to Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam and Saudi Arabia.

But it plans to expand across the Asia-Pacific region, company spokesman Mr Edward Sirait told AFP, with 124 Boeings already ordered in 2007 and a projected fleet of 419 planes by 2025 based on current plans.

“The number of passengers taking domestic flights in Indonesia is growing by about 25 per cent annually, so we hope to absorb a large part of the market,” he said.

“The market in South Asia is quite big. Besides the Southeast Asian market, we will also expand to India, China and Australia,” he said.

Lion was founded by brothers Kusnan and Rusdi Kirana in 1999 with just one plane and Tom Ballantyne, chief editor of Hong Kong—based Orient Aviation, said its growth had been “quite phenomenal“.

“Indonesia is one of the fastest growing markets in the region. Everyone talks about China but Indonesia has a huge population and certainly there is very strong growth there.

“It’s quite an incredible order. It came out of the blue,” he told AFP. But he added: “There is some mystery about where the money comes from. They don’t put out a lot of details but they never seem to have any problem with it.”

Mr Obama said that his administration and the US Export-Import Bank, which provides loans and credit guarantees, were “critical in facilitating this deal”.

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