Indonesian anti-trust agency KPPU has found various airlines guilty of increasing ticket prices during the same time last year.

Triggering inflationary pressures in the country, the increased airfares last year also had an impact on the hospitality business across the archipelago.

Garuda Indonesia, its unit Citilink, rival Lion Group’s Lion Air, Wings Air and Batik Air, as well as Sriwijaya Air and its subsidiary NAM Air were found guilty of ‘concerted action or parallelism,’ Reuters reported.

They are believed to have followed one another’s moves with regard to the setting of fares and discounts.

The KPPU was quoted by the news agency as saying that it ordered the airlines to report whenever they plan to increase ticket prices.

However, these seven carriers were not fined even though they violated anti-monopoly rules.

At the time of making its ruling, KPPU said that the already tough trading environment for airlines created by the Covid-19 pandemic was taken into consideration.

The agency further added that the airline industry is controlled by a tight oligopoly and these airlines own a 95% share of the market. It also recommended that authorities should create rules to allow more players into the sector.

In a statement, Garuda said that it would adhere to principles and provisions of healthy business competition.

Reuters quoted Lion Air Group as saying in a statement that it had never set its ticket prices by working with an external party and it had also complied with the regulator’s pricing rules.