Bombardier Plane Rental Polemic, Who Enjoys Garuda Indonesia Money?

JAKARTA - PT Garuda Indonesia Tbk. continue to make improvements to its operational activities in order to reduce the company's operational costs. One of the strategic steps taken by the state-owned airline was to return 12 of the 18 Bombardier CRJ 1000 aircraft that the company had rented.

Garuda considers this effort to save the company's cash from paying for fleet leases of up to tens of millions of dollars or the equivalent of hundreds of billions of rupiah. The problem arose because the lessor (aircraft charter) rejected Garuda's unilateral decision, which was deemed to have violated the contract agreed upon at the beginning of the agreement.

To note, the 12 aircraft used by GIA coded airlines were chartered under an operating lease agreement from a lessor Nordic Aviation Capital (NAC), Denmark. Meanwhile, the other 6 fleets were brought in through the Export Development Canada or EDC financial lease scheme.

After investigating, this aircraft with a capacity of 100 people is considered incompatible with Indonesian characteristics, especially the domestic market share. As a result, the operational costs of GIA have increased due to the imbalance of revenue and expenses for aircraft leases.

In fact, Garuda is said to have tied 12 aircraft from Nordic Aviation Capital for 12 years from 2015 to 2027. Meanwhile, 6 fleets from EDC were contracted for 10 years until 2024.

In the regulation, if one of the parties breaks the cooperation, that party is obliged to pay the rental fee in the remaining term of termination until the contra ends. NAC, as the owner of the aircraft, clearly rejected Garuda's policy of returning its 12 fleets.

Garuda itself has actually submitted an initial payment under a certain scheme, but NAC refused on the grounds that it was not in accordance with the principal of the agreement.

This news reached the ears of the Minister of State-Owned Enterprises (BUMN) Erick Thohir. As the big boss of a state company, Erick suspected that something was wrong at the beginning of the cooperation contract drafting.

Unmitigated, Erick revealed that his party had received some important information from the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) and the British Serious Fraud Office (SFO) regarding the eye games on Garuda's body.

"We will use these points as a basis," he said virtually, Wednesday, February 10.

For information, the airline coded as GIAA shares said that it had suffered a loss of 30 million dollars per year or equivalent to Rp418 billion while operating the CRJ 1000 fleet. This value does not include rental fees of 27 million dollars per year or Rp 376 billion. This means that Garuda has to bear more than half a trillion per 12 months to fly Bombardier aircraft.

It should be noted that the procurement process for the CRJ 1000 fleet was carried out by the company when it was led by Emirsyah Satar. At that time, the boss said that this type of aircraft had the advantage of being fuel efficient so it was hoped that it could help reduce operational costs.

Meanwhile, Emirsyah Satar himself is currently stumbling over a corruption case in the procurement of aircraft and engines from Airbus and Rolls-Royce, as well as money laundering. For his actions, he was sentenced to 8 years in prison by the Jakarta Corruption Court on May 8, 2020.