The Indonesian Ministry of Transport (MoT) has cautioned Lion Air (JT, Jakarta Soekarno-Hatta), saying that it must improve its operational management or risk fines, reports news site Kontan. The warning comes after a number of incidents involving flight delays.

Passengers on Sunday April 2 were delayed at Jakarta Soekarno-Hatta for up to three hours, while the previous week Singaporean passengers had to be transported by bus across the border to Johor Bahru when Lion Air's flight was refused authority to fly from Singapore Changi.

To ease delays, Lion has been instructed to adjust its human resourcing; namely to increase the pilot to aircraft ratio, and ensure the exchange of crews can be done in a timely manner. Human resource management should also improve duty rostering, and set up customer care services. Finally, Lion must have an additional aircraft on standby in case of delays caused by hardware faults.

Daniel Putut, managing director of Lion Air, admits that the airline's current management and IT systems can't keep up with its expansion, reports The Jakarta Post.

"We need a new system, especially for the IT system for the aircraft and crew rotation. I hope we can do it within two months," Putut said.

Director General of Civil Aviation, Agus Santoso, has given the airline two months to correct the deficiencies after which it may be subject to fines or even suspension of its Air Operator's Certificate (AOC).

Lion Air is Indonesia's largest airline by seat capacity, serving around forty domestic destinations, as well as locations in China, Saudi Arabia, Palau, Malaysia, Macau, and Singapore. According to ch-aviation data, Lion Air's fleet comprises three A330-300s, thirty-seven B737-800s, seventy-one B737-900 WIN.s, and two B747-400s.